


Brewed Awakening

by communikate



Category: Voltron: Legendary Defender
Genre: Alternate Universe - Coffee Shops & Cafés, Alternate Universe - Magic, Alternate Universe - Modern with Magic, Alternate Universe - Urban Fantasy, Angst, Angst with a Happy Ending, Blood, Blood Magic, Blood and Injury, Canon-Typical Violence, Getting Together, Happy Ending, Heavy Angst, M/M, Magic, Mutual Pining, Prophetic Visions, Witch Curses, Witch Keith (Voltron), Witch Lance (Voltron)
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-01-06
Updated: 2021-01-06
Packaged: 2021-03-10 16:53:52
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 26,784
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28250451
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/communikate/pseuds/communikate
Summary: Without thought, Keith reached out and brushed his fingers against Lance’s wrist. “Wait, uh,” he fumbled when Lance turned to look at him, dropping his hand back to his lap, “how do you know if a vision is going to happen?”“Depends.” Lance propped his free hand on his waist as he narrowed his eyes in thought. “There are a lot of factors that go into a vision. A lot of them can be interpreted in different ways, kind of like dreams. Just because you see something, it doesn’t mean it’s going to happen that way.”“It didn’t feel like a dream,” Keith whispered.
Relationships: Keith & Shiro (Voltron), Keith/Lance (Voltron)
Comments: 18
Kudos: 84
Collections: Voltron Secret Santa





	Brewed Awakening

**Author's Note:**

> I'm so happy to share my piece for the Voltron Secret Santa 2020!!
> 
> Mayoshirobuta, I hope you enjoy this piece!! (°◡°♡) Your prompts were amazing!! Angst with a happy ending is really my jam haha I really like to try to incorporate all of the prompts that I'm given, so I hope that you enjoy reading this fic as much as I enjoyed writing it!
> 
> I want to give a big thank you to my beta, [Malevelynce](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Malevelynce/pseuds/Malevelynce)!! This piece wouldn't have been the same without you <3

The sign above the door was scripted in an elegant blue font with curling letters and a glisten of magick at the edges. “Brewed Awakening Café” seemed to draw the eye, even from the farthest street corner. The facade was relatively plain with large bay windows and gauzy drapes that barely concealed the figures within. The door was arched and crafted out withered wood, appearing like the entrance to a witch’s house in the old fairy tales.

It was quaint in a way that set Keith on edge. Too peaceful. Too sweet. Like a trap wrapped in a perfect bow.

Gritting his teeth, Keith shoved his hands into his pockets and marched across the street. The handle was cold beneath the leather of his gloves as he tore open the door. The bell above him rang softly as he passed the threshold.

The interior mirrored the same unassuming nature of its facade. However, hints of the true nature of the café were sprinkled throughout. Scattered about the shop were small wooden tables, white-washed into a rustic feel, and surrounded with stiff-armed chairs made of soft fabric. At the center of each table was a small succulent or an intricate bottle of dried herbs.

At the back of the café stood the service counter, a sleek wooden finish with open shelves lining the back wall. The shelves were lined with potted plants, bottles of dried flowers, and intricate vases filled with tea leaves and coffee beans. Leaves of ivy spilled over the sides and across the shelves.

Guests lounged throughout the café, heads tipped back or hung over their cups, as their eyes were glossy and blank. Others chatted amongst themselves with several untouched drinks between them.

Keith slowly navigated through the shop, unable to keep his eyes focused on the waitstaff behind the counter. He glanced at each of the patrons, analyzing the limpness to their limbs or the glazed quality to their eyes. He could feel all of their heartbeats, the blood that thrummed through them with each pulse of his ventricles. One even jolted forward, almost spilling the drink in her hands. Her smile was wide and joyful as she pulled out her phone.

Straightening his back, Keith marched to the back of the café and stood directly in front of the cash register. He looked over the menu, handwritten on a small chalkboard that was propped beside the counter. It was in that same elegant script that decorated the shopfront.

The server, a young woman with tanned skin and curly hair that brushed her collarbones, smiled at him with tight lips and a weary gaze. Her skin glowed against the white walls and rustic tones of the café. Leaning against the counter, she motioned to the sign and asked, “What can I get for you?”

“Uh,” Keith hesitated and debated turning on his heel and leaving the café just as he had come.

The only reason he’d ventured to the other end of town was for their speciality drinks — and for Shiro, but he couldn’t linger on thoughts of his best friend right now. 

He quickly glanced behind him at the sound of the bell ringing above the door, but it was only the girl leaving with that same saccharine smile on her face. With a steady inhale, Keith calmed his racing heart and the anxiety that broiled in his lungs.

He wasn’t sure if he really desired to test any of these prophetic drinks, but he wasn’t sure if he had any choice in the matter.

“Do you want to take a menu?” the woman said, motioning to crisp white pamphlets that were poised just beside the chalkboard. “It has a lot more information on the drinks and the visions they provide.”

Keith glanced again at the menu and all of the properties of their drinks: a glimpse of the future, a minor vision, or a major vision. In bold at the top was the seasonal drink: Star-Crossed Lovers Chai Latte.

No matter how he hated the idea of catching even a glimpse of the future, this was the entire reason he’d traveled across town. A solution to all of his sleepless nights spent pacing his apartment and constantly peering into his roommate’s room. This was exactly what he needed, but he was unsure if it was something he really desired to know.

His father had always told him never to mess with the future.

In the rosy memories of his childhood, his father had set him down on the edge of their porch. His legs were just long enough to brush against the sand that had swept up against the house like a tidal wave. Leaning against the railing, Keith glanced at his father beside him. 

“Keith,” his father’s voice was gruff, deeper and with a rawness that it rarely possessed, “you should never mess with the future. I don’t know how powerful your magick will become, but the future is a sacred place.”

Keith hesitated, the words too large for his mouth but they spilled out anyway, “Is that why mama isn’t here anymore?”

“Yes, son. She said that she had to leave to protect you.” His father settled a heavy hand on Keith’s shoulder.

He scooted over on the porch and pressed into his father’s side. “I hate the future.”

His father merely chuckled and brushed a gentle hand through his hair.

But here Keith was, fifteen years later, ready to buy a drink that would allow him to see into the possibilities that awaited.

He just couldn’t wait for the inevitable to happen any longer.

“Can I get a minor vision?” Keith asked as he met the woman’s gaze.

“Sure thing. What would you like that in?”

“An americano,” he said. It was phrased almost like a question, but the girl nodded without hesitation and turned towards the espresso machine.

Keith couldn’t help but watch as she prepared the drink. The process didn’t appear more involved than that of a non-magick coffee shop. Her movements were all precise, practiced in a way that told a story with each motion. In the end, she had a ceramic mug with the “Brewed Awakening” logo on it filled with a steaming cup of coffee.

When she pushed the drink out onto the counter, she gave him a soft smile. He took the cup without another word.

Finding a seat in the farthest corner of the restaurant, Keith slumped into the chair. The drink steamed on the table before him, wafting smoke gently into the air and smelling faintly of hazelnut. With trembling fingers, Keith brought it to his lips. He exhaled gently across the top of the cup to cool it down before he gulped back a large sip.

It burned down the length of his throat, almost making it impossible to swallow. He slammed the cup down onto the table. Burning coffee splashed over the sides, onto his gloves, and across the tabletop. But nothing else registered beside the lightheadedness that commandeered his mind and the blankness that overwhelmed his vision.

He slumped back into the chair, gripping onto the armrests as if that would stop the world from spinning around him.

The bright café faded before him as the taste of ozone and magick settled on the back of his tongue.

_His foot sank into the soft earth, startling him at the sudden shift of his body. Before he could ponder how he’d traversed into the darkened underbrush of the forest, someone called out his name._

_“Keith?!” There was a panicked quality to the voice, almost shrill in its desperation._

_Keith searched for the origin of the voice, but he only saw large oak trees covered in hanging vines and shifting shadows from the sun’s light on the canopy above. His throat ached, pulling tight and thin, as he tried to call out. Only a whimper sounded in return._

_Panic crawled up his throat like a spider as he opened his lips to scream but only a silent exhale whistled past his vocal cords._

_He pressed a gentle hand to his throat, only to feel something tacky and warm coat his fingertips. Pulling his hand back, the red on his fingers was stark even in the darkness around him._

_Staggering forward, Keith sprinted through the forest, aching to call to his companion, to locate the voice. He was desperate to find them, to make sure that they were safe, to tell them to run away from — from — He stumbled. There was the lightheadedness again, a persistent, painful thing that shook the world around him._

_An unfamiliar laugh echoed in the back of his mind, something that resonated from the very forest itself._

_His knees sank into the deep mud as his hands clawed at his neck, desperate to tear his voice from his throat. But no sound came. And neither did the man that called his name._

The coffee shop returned in a stumbling flash.

Keith clawed at his throat as each breath tore through his lungs like hurricane-level winds. But there was no blood on his fingertips or mud beneath his feet. There were only the pristine white walls of the café and the steaming Americano on the table before him. Beneath the mug was the gradually spreading puddle of spilled coffee, but Keith couldn’t even be bothered to clean it up.

Stumbling away from the table, Keith barrelled through the restaurant and slammed his hands on the counter.

The woman jumped at his sudden appearance, but she merely glanced over his personage before pointing to a chalkboard sign that hung above the glass dessert case. In scrawling cursive it read: No refunds for disturbing, inaccurate, or unhelpful visions.

“Sorry, no refunds.” She crossed her arms and propped her hip against the counter. Raising one eyebrow, she observed him as if waiting for him to snap.

“No, that’s not what —” Keith curled his hands to fists against the smooth wooden surface of the counter. Glancing at her name tag, Keith took a deep breath and continued, “Veronica, sorry, I didn’t mean to — just, how accurate are the visions?”

Veronica’s stance relaxed slightly before she sighed and grabbed a small booklet that rested beside the cash register. It was a worn leather journal with a piece of blue ribbon tied at the ends to keep the book closed. With the snap of her fingers, the ribbon unwound and dangled off the back cover as she flipped it open.

“Depends on the type of vision. What type was it?” She licked her finger and began thumbing through the pages.

“I — I don’t know.” Keith had never been interested in prophecies or oracles or fortune tellers. Maybe it was the superstitions his father believed or the anxiety of knowing something that he could never change.

She nodded slightly and returned to the first page of the journal. “Was a fragment of a past memory or something you believe is from the future?”

“Future,” Keith mumbled weakly, remembering the feel of words scratching at the back of his throat and unable to escape.

Veronica hummed as she flipped to the next page. “Do you have a guess of how far in the future? Did you seem significantly older than you currently are?”

Keith remembered the way he sprinted through the woods, youthful legs dodging roots and fallen trees, and the soft, unwrinkled nature of his hands. “I wasn’t much older.”

“Alright then,” she clicked her tongue before snapping the book closed and giving him a soft smile, “should be about 90% accurate.”

“Ninety percent?” Keith choked out.

“Yeah, we can’t say 100% accurate because of liability, but if you were talking to my brother, he would —”

Keith leaned over the counter, hand laying heavy on the unbound book, eyes pleading and lips curled back. “How do you know? How do you even calculate something like that?”

Veronica snatched the book out from beneath his hand and snapped her fingers so that the blue ribbon bound the book closed again. “Look.” Her tone was curt, cutting through Keith’s panic and leaving nothing behind. “I’m not the one who magicks the drinks here. That’s my little brother’s talent, so I can only tell you what notes he’s left us. If you want to talk to him about your vision, feel free to come into tomorrow. Or if you want to order one of our other drinks,” Veronica motioned to the sign once again, “I’d be happy to help you. Otherwise, feel free to enjoy the rest of your Americano.”

“Won’t I—”

“There’s only enough magick in a drink for one vision, so please enjoy it as you normally would.” Veronica’s tone had softened slightly, a gentleness between the cutting edge. Her next words were polite, verging on the fake sugar of artificial sweetener. “Thanks for coming, and have a good rest of your day.”

It was a clear dismissal, so Keith backed up and retreated to the corner where his drink had slowly been turning cold. Without even bothering to take another sip, Keith placed the cup on a cart marked with other dirty dishes and walked out of the café. He was too nauseous to even hope to finish his coffee.

─── ･ ｡ﾟ☆: *.☽ .* :☆ﾟ. ───

“Keith,” his roommate called out the second Keith had opened the door. Shiro was lounging on the couch, foot up and his hand was wrapped around the TV remote. His right arm was propped up with healing salve and talismen wrapped around the freshly severed end. There was a weariness that still hadn’t left his body in the days and weeks since Keith had torn him from the brambles of the Diabazzal Forrest.

Beneath Shiro’s grey eyes were bags that only darkened by the day. The nightmares that shook him awake with cries and screams made the bags look more like bruises than signs of lost sleep. So, he normally hid his gaze beneath the new white shock of hair just above his forehead. Keith had cut all of the long locks off within days of them arriving in this safe haven, but the color had saturated the strands.

“Hey Shiro,” Keith nudged the door closed with his shoulder and shucked off his leather jacket. He bit into the meat of his thumb with enough force that blood bubbled in a steady stream. With the bloodied finger, he traced the sigil on the back of the door, renewing the magick ward that kept out all with evil intentions.

Shiro’s eyes followed the movement, a frown pulling at the corners of his lips. Weeks ago, when they had only been free from the Forrest for days, his best friend had hated the sigils and spells that Keith had drawn around the apartment. The blood loss had left him lightheaded, and the magick pulled at him so severely it was like his skin was dry and cracked and stretched to the limit.

But in these weeks, they’d both grown accustomed to the quiet hum of Keith’s magick running through the apartment. It was the only way Keith felt safe anymore.

Throwing his jacket on the back of one of the kitchen bar stools and kicking off his boots, Keith padded into the living room. “How’re you feeling? Sorry, I was planning on being back by the time you woke up but —”

“Don’t worry about it.” Shiro’s smile was warm. “And I’m doing fine. I keep telling you not to worry, Keith.”

Crossing his arms and slumping onto the opposite side of the couch, Keith mumbled, “I’ll worry until Sendak’s dead and burned.”

“He’s not a demon, Keith.” Shiro rolled his eyes, a morbid joke that hit a little heavier than it had prior to his disappearance. His best friend had always been one for gallows humor, something his grandparents’ had never enjoyed but Keith had always found funny.

“Are you sure about that?” Keith joked, but there was a touch of seriousness beneath the humor.

Because they both knew that there was something unnatural about Sendak, about the forest that he had commandeered and used for his malicious purposes. Even in his build, the breadth of his shoulders and the yellowed points of his teeth — more like fangs from something more feral than the animals Keith had seen in zoos. Just the memory of the remnants of Sendak’s magick on Shiro had been enough to send chills down the length of Keith’s spine.

He hoped to never face the monster directly.

Shiro huffed a laugh at Keith’s comment, but it caught on a cough. He raised his right arm to cough in to his elbow, only to be stopped by the obvious ache that jolted up his humerus. With a deliberate motion, he placed his right arm back on the pillows and buried his face in his left elbow to hide his coughing.

Keith crossed the couch to Shiro’s side. Rubbing a hand down Shiro’s back, Keith asked, “Are you alright?”

With a final cough, Shiro collapsed back against the couch and pinned Keith’s hand between his heated flesh and the cushions. “I’m fine. Just caught a little cold or something.”

Keith pulled his hand from behind Shiro and waltzed into the kitchen. “Let me make you some tea. You sound awful.”

Shiro chuckled, but it was a hoarse thing that caught on phlegm and the new rawness of his throat. “Thanks. You’re so kind.” There was an exaggeration to Shiro’s tone, playful in a way that poked at all of Keith’s overprotective tendencies.

Pulling out the kettle and Shiro’s favorite mug, Keith began the process of making tea. There were several long shelves above his sink that held all of his jars of dried leaves and herbs. On the far side of the apartment sat all of the plants he’d brought from the shop. They sat on the windowsills and on a bookcase he’d picked from the trash.

“Should I —”

“If you put a single drop of blood in the tea Keith, I swear to god, I won’t drink it.” Shiro’s tone was firm, but there was a forced lightness, something that he’d acclimated to using in these weeks since his return. 

“Fine, fine. Just a normal cup of tea it is,” Keith joked as he pulled down his dried herbs and mixed up a brew that would hopefully calm the seizing of Shiro’s lungs.

After setting the kettle to boil, he pulled out a watering can to treat all of the plants by the window. It was almost nice to have so few nowadays, because they could all get so much more attention. He checked under all of the leaves, tested the soil with the pad of his finger, and rotated the pots so every side would get even exposure to the sun.

He paused in his work when the kettle started screaming and finished preparing Shiro’s tea. After pressing the warmed ceramic mug into his best friend’s hand, Keith got back to work tending to his plants.

“I’m sorry about the shop,” Shiro mumbled against the rim of the cup.

“It’s okay,” Keith mumbled, unable to turn and face Shiro as he spoke. He watered the next shelf of plants and placed the watering can on the coffee table. “The storefront is still available, so maybe I can buy it back and open up again.”

“That’d be nice. You always looked so at home there.”

Keith closed his eyes and fought back the lump in his throat.

The store had been the first thing he had done on his own after losing his father. Shiro had wanted him to stay in the Queen’s Guild, but the rules were too strict and the stigma against his magick was too much to bear — and after Shiro went missing, Keith couldn’t stay in the place that had sent him deep into the Diabazzal Forrest without any plan to rescue him.

While Shiro had flourished in the militaristic environment of the Guild, he took Keith under his wing and allowed him to study his magick in his younger teen years. When graduation rolled around and everyone in the class around him signed up to serve under Queen Allura — to use their magick in service of the kingdom, to the crown, and the people she protects — Keith had taken his diploma and left the hallowed halls.

Some had even demanded why he wasn’t going to join her ranks. A boy he barely remembered pushed him up against the wall and pinned him with sapphire eyes. “Why aren’t you moving on? You’re the most talented witch since Shiro, and yet you’re — you’re quitting?!”

Keith shrugged off the boy, because he didn’t have to explain.

In the wake of his disastrous departure, Keith opened up the shop. He built it from the ground up, cultivated the plants and scribed their pots with his magick to keep them healthy. It was hard but honest work, and he had loyal customers to show for it all — those who relied on him for their spell casting or incense work.

The shop was something to focus on while news of Shiro’s journey had dwindled to nothing.

Keith hadn’t wanted Shiro to go in the first place. To willingly venture into the depths of the Diabazzal Forrest was foolish beyond measure. But Shiro had taken the mission with pride, with a cocky smile and magick dancing along his fingertips.

“It’s in service to my country, Keith. It’s important. It’s — well, I’m not supposed to be telling you this, but Allura suspects that there might be dangerous forces at work there so we need to investigate,” Shiro had told him the night before they left. He had settled a warm palm on Keith’s shoulder. “We’ll be back before you know it.”

The words had stuck in the back of his throat, unable to be voiced, because Keith couldn’t be the one of the only people to push back against Shiro’s decisions — not after Adam had pushed hard enough to break them both. 

And then, the news of Shiro’s death, his failure to lead a mission, was plastered all over the news. The country mourned his death, and all of her subjects said that Queen Allura mourned the deepest.

But Keith let his plants die and set out to the Diabazzal Forrest to find his best friend.

It felt like a miracle to find him, and now Keith wasn’t about to let Shiro doubt that the store or any plant was worth his life. “Yeah, and thankfully, there are always more plants. But there’s only one of you.”

Shiro chuckled and sipped calmly at his tea. After tending to his plants, Keith relaxed on the couch beside him with his feet propped up on the coffee table. “Want to watch a movie?”

They put something on and enjoyed the quiet comfort of each other’s company. But throughout the movie, Shiro’s cough didn’t cease. By the end, he was hunched over, hacking up a lung and stabilizing himself on Keith’s arm.

“Shiro, this seems serious. I mean —”

Shiro waved him off. “I’m fine. Please don’t worry about it.”

But how could Keith not worry?

The Shiro Keith had followed at the Queen’s Guild was so different from the one before him now. This one didn’t ooze the same confidence, was more timid in mind and body from the torment of Sendak’s rule — even if he couldn’t remember it. And Keith never faulted Shiro for the change, but he was used to Shiro being so untouchable, that now, he couldn’t help but worry for his best friend.

Keith nodded in response to Shiro, tugging a blanket high up on his lap and wrapping his bandages with fresh herbs and sigils.

It wasn’t like he could bring a doctor here to examine Shiro, not when he was still declared dead by the crown. His presence was a secret even from Queen Allura. And it wasn’t as if Shiro wasn’t recognizable; as spokesman for the Queen’s Guild, his likeness had been plastered on every commercial and billboard around town.

Keith didn’t want to go back to “Brewed Awakening,” but with the coughs that kept him up through the night, Keith didn’t have a choice.

─── ･ ｡ﾟ☆: *.☽ .* :☆ﾟ. ───

Keith pulled on his leather jacket and set out from the apartment on a mission.

The coffee shop looked the same as it had the other day, unassuming and quaint with a white facade and its large windows propped open slightly. As he pushed through the door, the bell jingled above his head which made the server turn and smile. Keith’s breath caught in his chest as the boy called out while was finishing pouring a latte, “Be with you in a second.”

He was beautiful. Golden skin and eyes bluer than the depths of the ocean or the sky on a clear day. And a smile that could down a thousand ships or rend the heavens from the Earth. He stood behind the counter and seemed to dance to the soft music playing from the speakers around the shop.

Keith barely realized he was walking until he stood at the counter, feet not registering the impact of each step. He placed his palms on the wood to keep him steady.

The boy was even more handsome up close. The playful smile crinkled the skin around his eyes and burrowed into the faint lines on his cheeks, a dimple pressed into just one side. His shirt was a patterned blue that brought out the golden glow of his skin. Holding back the bangs of his hair were little blue clips, lookin haphazardly thrown into his curling brown locks.

“What can I get for you?” The boy asked as he brushed his hands off on the apron that cinched around his waist and dangled to his knees. “We have our new seasonal drink, the star-crossed lovers chai latte if you’re interested in that. It’s pretty interesting since it’ll give you hints about your true love or the loves you’ve had in previous lives.”

“Are you the owner?” Keith blurted out, barely giving the boy a chance to finish.

The boy furrowed his brow and reached for the bound book that sat beside the register. “Yeah, and I am the one who spells the drinks. Did you come in yesterday?”

“Yeah, I spoke with Veronica, but she said that her little brother could help me.”

The boy’s face scrunched up at the mention of being called “little brother.” He rolled his eyes, and said, “That’s me. The name’s Lance.”

“Keith Kogane,” Keith offered without any reason too, but for some reason he needed this boy to know who he was.

Lance gave Keith a curious look, head tilting to the side and lips parted — like he was on the verge of saying something. With the shake of his head, Lance smiled. It was a boyish grin that was a little tighter than the one Keith had seen walking in. 

He turned his attention to the book in his hands. With the snap of his fingers, the blue ribbon unwound. Opening the cover, Lance flipped through the pages. “Actually, Veronica did tell me about you. You wanted to know how accurate your vision was.”

“Yes, it seemed like—”

“Why don’t I make you a drink with a major vision so that you can see a little bit more, okay?” Lance’s voice was threadbare, balancing between the razor edge of curtsy and irritation.

Keith pulled his wallet from his pocket as he said, “I wasn’t sure if it would be the same vision.”

“Normally, it wouldn’t,” Lance commented as he pulled another mug from the open shelving behind him. “Another americano?”

“Yes, please.”

Lance cleared his throat and began prepping ingredients for the americano, pressing the espresso powder down with the tamper and twisting his wrist so it was packed tightly. “It’ll cost you extra to ensure that you have the same vision. Are you alright with that?” He didn’t look up as he spoke, focused on inserting the portafilter into the machine.

The coffee steamed in the cup, prepared the same way Veronica had done it yesterday. Lance hovered both hands attop the mug, but glanced up at Keith.

“I’ll pay whatever I need to,” Keith breathed, remembering the weight of unspoken words in his throat from the vision yesterday and the sound of Shiro’s coughing throughout the night.

Lance nodded and closed his eyes. His lips parted in a wordless chat as strands of magick formed on the water vapor in the air and pulled towards the surface of the coffee. It swirled through his fingers like playful bubbles before drifting with the steam billowing from the mug. In a flash of blue light, it was over.

“Beautiful,” Keith whispered under his breath.

He’d seen a lot of magick when he was training at the Guild, but he was still unaccustomed to the beauty of it all. So many had commented on the barbaric nature of his magick that he never really took the time to appreciate others. Shiro’s was the only other magick that Keith studied, and it wasn’t flashy, simply coiling around his muscles and giving his skin a faint glow of purple with his enhanced speed and strength.

Keith almost jumped back at the sudden motion of Lance’s eyes opening, iris and sclera enveloped in a blinding blue light.

But in a blink, the color was gone and the cup was being pushed across the counter towards Keith. “That’ll be $18.95.”

Keith almost choked at the price but swiped his credit card without another word. What was twenty dollars to Shiro’s safety?

“Thank you,” Keith said as he grabbed the cup and marched towards the distant corner he had occupied yesterday. The mug was warm in his hands, especially without his familiar leather gloves, and it was a comforting weight as he settled into the plush chair. He stared into the slowly wafting steam and the tiny bubbles popping around the edges.

Anxiety bubbled in his lungs, forcing his breaths short and harsh. He cleared his throat, but even now it felt impossible to speak.

What would this vision hold for him? What was the difference between a minor and a major vision? How long would Keith be trapped in that forest unable to scream for help, like a cliché nightmare?

Steadying himself, Keith raised the cup to his lips and took a sip. Out of the corner of his eye, he saw Lance prop his elbow on the counter to watch. That curious tilt of his head and the slight smile was the last thing Keith saw before the vision consumed him.

_The sigil was carved in blood at the juncture of his two collarbones and down the length of his breastbone. The frayed edges of his shirt shifted with each aching breath as the drying sigil threatened to stain the torn cloth._

_He swayed on his knees, hands sinking into the soft earth of the forest floor._

_“Pity,” the voice growled, deep and reverberating through the air. A shadow fell over him, cast upon the shifting lace of the tree limbs above. It was large and engulfed Keith easily._

_Terror jolted through his body like lightning. The voice had been cooing, a purr made purely of malice and venom. And Keith was vulnerable, trembling on his hands and knees with his back exposed to the demon behind him._

_All Keith wanted to do was run. If only he had the strength._

_His tongue felt like ash in his mouth, dry and unable to form words — whether that was from the spell or the intimidation of the person behind him was unknown. A breath whistled through his teeth._

_Keith could sense the moment the demon reached towards him. A single long nail pulled a tendril of hair from his ponytail, tugging on the root with faux-tenderness. They let the strand filter through their fingers. They were so close. It would take nothing for them to wrap their large hand around Keith’s neck, to snap and strangle, to rend him from his body and leave him like carnage in the forest._

_The voice purred again, dark and raspy, as hot breath gusted along the nape of Keith’s neck. “I so longed to hear you call for help. Do you think I could still make you? Do you think he would come for you, return this deep in the forest for the likes of you? Would he mourn your death or would he relish in the freedom your life provided him?”_

_Keith wanted to snarl a response, to bite back and rebel, but the ache in his ribs told him that was unwise. The sigil burned along his skin with each shaky breath._

_“But I guess we shall see if all of this was worth it, young one,” the voice chuckled with a dark, conspiratory edge. The nails left his hair and the shadow retreated, but Keith could still feel the weight of the eyes upon him. Even as he stumbled to his feet and steadied himself against the gnarled bark of a tree._

_He needed to keep moving, to get to — the name slipped out of his mind like smoke, but the desperation still remained, a longing that clawed at his chest._

_He wanted to call out and bring them to his side, but his throat tightened at even the merest thought of words. And the weight of those eyes refused to leave him._

_His feet sank into the softened earth as underbrush clung to his pants and tore at his exposed skin. It was like every piece of the forest longed to have him stay, to bury himself in their twisted branches and gnarled roots, to lay himself down along the damp earth and be consumed by fungi and animals, feeding them with his very essence._

_But he pushed on. Desperation gnashed through his ribs like a prisoner rattling against their cage._

_“Keith?!” Someone called out, sounding so familiar like he’d heard it once in a dream. There was a panicked quality to voice, shrill in its dread and hysteria._

_He turned on his feet, allowing the forest to sink its claws into his legs, to pull at his body as he stood still — listening for the origin of the voice._

_But there was no sign of anyone nearby. There were only large oak trees with vines dangling from the highest branches, swaying in the gentle wind that had once carried the achingly-familiar scream. The shadows shifted as the sun peeked from behind the clouds and shone on the canopy above. The leaves shifted in that breeze and cast lace like shadows upon the earth._

_He took a tentative step forward, pulling from the roots that threatened to tie him to the forest floor forever. A whimper of sound pulled from his throat as he attempted to call out to the voice, to say the name that sat on the tip of his tongue. His throat ached with each hoarse word that whined within his chest._

_His hands scratched down the length of his throat, smearing the sigil of blood, but the spell remained._

_Parting his lips, Keith called out again, throat pulled tight and thin as nothing but a hoarse exhale sounded. He staggered forward, caught on the roots and underbrush of the overgrown forest. And as soon as he was moving, he kept going — sprinting between the trees and over rotting stumps and thorny bushes._

_The shadowed voice from earlier laughed in the back of his mind. Chills coursed down the length of Keith’s spine._

_And he knew that he couldn’t find his companion, the one who’s name was lost to him beyond the fog of the distant forest._

_Sinking to his knees, Keith clawed at his neck, desperate to tear his voice from his throat. The knees of his pants soaked up the damp earth as clotted blood buried beneath his fingernails. But no sound came. And neither did the person that called his name._

_Falling forward, Keith was glad they never came for him, because of the danger and the hunger of the woods. But part of him ached to see them once again, to say their name one last time._

_Closing his eyes, Keith allowed himself to slumber with their name on his lips._

“Lance,” Keith gasped, jolting forward and spilling the coffee across the table and down the front of his shirt.

His hands were trembling as he placed the half-full cup upon the wooden table.

He couldn’t breath, his throat pulled tight and thin like in the vision. No words could make it past the lump in his throat. Only a wheezing exhale passed between his lips. His hands gripped the plush arms of the chair he was sitting in, but he couldn’t feel anything other than the raw rasp of his breath.

The entire room shifted its axis, sending his mind tilting to the right and to the left before it focused on the mess across the top of the table. The mug sat in the center of the splatter with drying drops of coffee staining the exterior of the ceramic. The puddle of coffee looked light and translucent at the edges against the white wash of the tabletop.

The world had tunnelled down to the thick coffee beeding off the edge of the table and the steady beat of it splattering against the floor.

There was nothing else.

A gentle hand settled on his shoulder. Fingers warm and lithe against the cooled leather of his jacket. They shook him delicately, but his attention didn’t sway from the slow drips of coffee.

He was going to die in that forest. And he already knew which one it was. There was no way he could forget the ominous eyes or the overbearing shadows that seemed to watch your every move. Or how the smell of fresh earth was polluted by decay and rot.

Diabazzal Forrest was a place he had vowed to never enter again.

But it seemed he was destined to go back, destined to face an entity that was far beyond his abilities. To crawl for the aid of someone he couldn’t remember, only to realize it was for the better if he died in the mud and became a building block for the Forrest’s ecosystem.

“--with me. In and out. Can you hear me?” a soft voice filtered through his thoughts. It was hushed, quieted beyond the ringing in his ears.

The hand left his shoulder and pulled his palm from the arm of the chair. His fingers were still curled, nails digging and catching on the velveteen fabric. The shock of warmth finally pulled his gaze away from the dripping coffee. His hand was settled on a chest. Under the pressure of tanned fingers, Keith relaxed his palm against the breadth of lean muscle. The fabric wrinkled easily beneath his twitching fingers.

The tanned hand, stained with the scars of faded burns and calluses, pressed Keith’s palm tighter against the chest. Their fingers almost intertwined which made Keith’s breath catch in his chest. But the soft voice echoed beyond the rush of blood in his ears.

“In and out with me, okay?” His voice was soft over the drone in Keith’s ears.

Keith felt the chest rise beneath his palm and allowed his own breathing to fall into sync with it.

But he still couldn’t pull out from the tunneled vision, focused on only one fragment of the world around him.

His hand was pulled away from the warm chest. Before he could push forward to once again feel the comforting shift of breath beneath his palm, a glass of water was pressed into his grasp. The liquid caught the light in an unnatural manner, glinting off the top like blue irredencse. 

“Drink,” the voice instructed, still gentle and coaxing.

Keith wanted to please the voice, so he pressed the glass to his lips and slowly sipped.

It was like a shock of cold to his system, jolting him out of the tunneled sensation. The rest of the world came rushing back to him.

The filtered light in the café was bright, almost blinding as it highlighted the white aesthetic of the shop. It was only then that Keith felt the uncomfortable dampness of his shirt and the lap of his pants, soaked through with cooling coffee. His throat felt raw as if he had been screaming for the past hour.

Standing before him was Lance, and somehow he looked even more beautiful in Keith’s refreshed vision. There was a flush to his cheeks and a tinge of sweat on his forehead. A half-formed handprint in coffee was pressed into his blue t-shirt. He was squatting beside Keith’s chair with a tentative expression on his face, caught between two emotions that Keith couldn’t name.

“Are you okay?”

“I —” Keith coughed at the rawness of his throat, “— I’m okay. What was that?”

“Sorry,” Lance scratched at the back of his neck as a faint blush crawled up the length of his neck and settled in his cheeks. He stood up and pulled a coffee-stained towel from the pocket of his black apron. “Sometimes that can happen with repeat visions. I should’ve warned you before.”

Keith merely hummed in response, recalling how visceral the fear was as it coursed through his body and the desperation to see his companion one last time.

Lance was wiping down Keith’s table with steady motions. When all the coffee had been swept up and the almost empty mug dangled from his fingers, Lance turned to leave.

Without thought, Keith reached out and brushed his fingers against Lance’s wrist. “Wait, uh,” he fumbled when Lance turned to look at him, dropping his hand back to his lap, “how do you know if a vision is going to happen?”

“Depends.” Lance propped his free hand on his waist as he narrowed his eyes in thought. “There are a lot of factors that go into a vision. A lot of them can be interpreted in different ways, kind of like dreams. Just because you see something, it doesn’t mean it’s going to happen that way.”

“It didn’t feel like a dream,” Keith whispered.

Lance nodded, but by his resigned sigh, it was clear that was what he was expecting to hear. “Let me clean up here and I can get you an employee’s uniform to wear instead of those wet clothes.”

“I don’t need —”

“Then we can go to the back of the shop and discuss this.” Lance didn’t leave room for argument or hesitation as he quickly walked the length of the shop to throw the towel in a hamper and the mug in the sink.

─── ･ ｡ﾟ☆: *.☽ .* :☆ﾟ. ───

In fifteen minutes, Keith was sitting in a pair of baggy black dress pants and a crisp white t-shirt. A boy who had looked similar to Lance had taken over the manning the counter with a dismissive wave when Lance tried to say something. He was perched contentedly behind the cash register on a stool with a book in hand. He gave them a nod when Lance showed Keith into the back room.

Now Keith was sitting at a folding craft table and on a chair with an awful wobble. He had to brace himself on the flimsy table in order to not slide out of the seat. Surrounding them were shelves of inventory. The air was saturated with the scent of coffee, and it calmed Keith’s nerves a little as he met Lance’s gaze across the table.

The boy was flipping through a set of Tarot cards and looking at Keith with a narrowed gaze.

“Will you describe your vision for me?” Lance motioned to Keith as the cards naturally filtered through his fingers.

“I was in the Diabazzal Forrest —”

“How are you sure?” Lance asked with a sharpness to his voice that betrayed a level of severity that Keith didn’t understand.

There was a sudden weight to the air between them. A heaviness that wasn’t initiated by the scent of coffee or the lingering anxiety of his vision.

Keith crossed his arms and glanced at the bags of coffee slumped across the shelves. “I’ve been there before, and there’s no other place that’s quite like it. So I’m — I’m sure it was the Forrest.”

He couldn’t explain past that, couldn’t talk about how he’d scoured the Forrest for Shiro, living beneath the hanging vines and at the base of ancient oak trees. How the damp earth always threatened to drown him like quicksand. 

And most importantly, he couldn’t speak of how dragging Shiro from the Forrest had been like an amputation, tearing something so deeply integrated that it felt like it belonged. Because now Shiro’s presence was hidden behind Keith’s wards, even from the eyes of the queen. Any knowledge of their position could grant Sendak the means to come after them.

Lance hummed in response, gazing shifting from Keith to the cards shuffling instinctively in his fingers.

Before silence could settle between them, Keith picked up from where he left off, “So, I was in the Forrest and someone else was with me. I couldn’t see who they were, but they — it was strange how familiar they felt.” Keith shook his head as if to dispel the chill that traipsed up the length of his spine. “I had already drawn a sigil so that I couldn’t speak, but I’m not sure why I would do that.”

Keith paused, and before he could continue, Lance asked with a strange curl to his lips as if he already knew the answer, “What type of magick do you practice?”

“Blood magick.” Keith’s voice didn’t waver as he turned his gaze from the coffee bags to meet Lance’s eyes. He was aware of the stigma around his type of magick — of the black witches that were born from his practice. But Keith and his family had never been those that parents paint in bed-time stories to scare their children into behaving.

All magick had the potential for corruption. But blood magick drew its powers directly from someone’s quintessence, whether that be the casters or another’s. Being so close to the source of power made witches easily corruptible.

With infinite magick at the tips of their fingers, how were blood witches supposed to resist the pull?

Keith had never felt the urge to draw his power from the likes of sacrifices, whether animal or humans. Maybe it was his father’s magick, born of ember and flame, that steadied the urge within him. For even his mother had disappeared before Keith could remember more than the faint hum of her voice or the sensation of being held in her arms.

Lance merely hummed in response once again, before motioning for Keith to continue. His lithe fingers danced along the edges of the cards as his eyes never left Keith. It was a hypnotic pattern to watch, as the gilded cards glittered in the dim lighting.

“The person left me, but —” Keith squinted as he tried to recall the sensation of eyes upon him, whether that was just the Forrest or the person, “ — I wasn’t sure if they were still watching me. The Forrest itself feels like that sometimes.” Keith explained, unsure if he sounded half as crazy as he felt.

His throat burned as if remembering the way his screams caught in his chest and whimpered past his lips. “But then,” Keith whispered, trying to recall any identifiable quality about the voice, “someone called out my name.”

“Did you see another person in your vision?”

“No. No, I didn’t see anyone, but I tried to get to the person who called my name.” Keith curled his fingers into his biceps as he hunched more onto the plastic table. A shiver climbed up the length of his spine like the cold press of claws or the hot breath against his neck. “I think — I think I died in the Forrest.”

Lance’s hand suddenly stopped on the shifting cards. Slowly, he placed the deck on the table and crossed his hands over them. Leaning forward slightly, Lance regarded Keith with a calculating gaze. “Are you sure?”

“I don’t know.” Keith closed his eyes and allowed himself to revisit the vision: the sudden coldness that had seeped from the moist earth and invaded his body, crawling down to his bone marrow and devouring him from within; the slumber that pulled at his limbs and pleaded with him to join the life cycle of the Forrest; the sudden blankness that had followed the vision, the hollowness that had persisted in the moments between the end of the vision and the startling sight of the café. “But if I had to imagine death, I would imagine it like that.”

“Interesting,” was all Lance said in response before motioning to stacked cards before Keith. With the flick of his wrist, he spread them out in an arch. He held out his hand, palm up, over the table, eyes still fixated on the cards before him. “Take my hand,” he directed.

Keith reached forward, fingertips gliding along the smooth texture of Lance’s palm before his hand settled in Lance’s grip. He wished that he had worn his leather gloves to provide some sort of barrier between him and Lance. Instead he was shocked by the warmth and softness of Lance’s skin. Before he could even think about pulling away, Lance’s fingers tightened around his own.

Lance hummed and a slight glint of his magick colored the water vapor in the air around their joined hands. With the other hand, he hovered his pointer finger above the cards. The tip of his finger was slowly wrapped in those silken blue threads, bubbling and flowing along the length of it. The magick glowed brighter as he quickly picked out three cards.

The boy released his grip and dropped their hands. With a practiced motion, he placed the three cards in a line beside each other. While he spoke, he gathered up the others and placed them in a careful stack. “These three cards represent your past, present, and future.” He pointed to each card as he emphasized their role.

“Okay.” Keith tried to keep the disbelief out of his voice.

But hadn’t he just seen a vision of the future brought on by a sip of coffee? Surely Lance could magick cards that would represent what his life would play out like.

With the flick of his wrist, Lance turned over the first card. It faced Lance, so it was a little difficult to see, but the bottom of the card read “The Tower.” Drawn in beautiful artistry was a tall tower in the middle of the card with the top set ablaze. Thunderous clouds darkened the backdrop.

Lance flipped the next card without hesitation. Without even needing to read it, Keith knew what the card was. A skeleton sat in the middle, standing above gravestones and surrounded by flowers. “Death” was scripted beautifully at the bottom.

The next card was turned before Keith even had a second to process that death represented his present. The final card was titled “Hanged Man” and depicted a man hanging upside down by a rope tied around his foot.

“All major arcana,” Lance hummed, tapping his pointer finger on his chin. “Seems you don’t do things by half-measures, huh?”

Keith could only swallow and nod in response.

Lance dragged a delicate fingertip along the edges of the card that represented Keith’s past. “You’ve experienced a great loss or a disaster in your past. It was a momentous change for you that you had no choice but to embrace.”

Keith’s hands curled into his biceps, and he hoped that Lance couldn’t see all of the emotions flicker across his face. Because Keith had experienced loss after loss, between his parents and Shiro, Keith rarely knew what it was like to have someone stay beside him.

“And recently, you’ve had a major change, huh?” Lance glanced up as his fingertip tapped lightly against the card in the middle, the one that represented his present. “I know a lot of people tend to freak out when they see Death among their spread, but it doesn’t mean literal death. It’s a change or a transition, representing death in a way that the old you needs to ‘die’ to allow the new you to be created.”

Keith nodded stiffly. His present was crafted by change, by dragging Shiro from the depths of the Diabazzal Forrest and learning to cope with all of the consequences of that action.

Lance’s soft smile stiffened as he straightened the final card in the row — the one that represented Keith’s future. “The hanged man represents sacrifice. Something must be given in order to progress forward. Sometimes it’s repentance or taking a step back from all of this change that you’ve been going through.”

“But with my vision,” Keith choked out, unable to finish the question.

“With your vision, it seems that sacrifice could be something greater than repentance. The hanged man’s journey is a lonely one, Keith,” Lance began, drawing his hands back so they were folded over the deck of cards, “but you don’t have to do everything alone.”

“When will it happen?” Keith snapped as he dug his fingers so deeply into the skin of his biceps that if he wasn’t wearing his leather jacket, reddened half-moons would be gouged into his skin.

Lance sighed deeply as he gathered up the three card spread and shuffled them back in the deck. “I can’t say —”

“When will it happen?” Keith growled out, ready to reach across the table and grab at the coffee-stained handprint he’d left in Lance’s shirt.

Lance ran a hand through his hair. “It’s likely that the vision will occur within the month. But that’s only an estimate from —”

“How do I stop it?” The weight of the Forrest settled on him like the sudden pressure of gravity. He could remember the pulling and pleading, how the Forrest sucked the marrow from his bones and the blood from his ventricles.

Lance’s voice was steady, but he refused to meet Keith’s eyes. “You probably can’t.”

Keith stood up so quickly the wobbly chair beneath him clattered to the floor. Digging his hands into his hair, he paced around the small inventory room of the café. “But — if I can’t stop it then I’ll — I’ll die in the Forrest and — what about Shiro?” He turned to gaze at Lance with a vulnerability he could feel clawing up his throat like bile.

Lance had half-risen out of his chair, but at the sound of Shiro’s name, his gaze jumped up to meet Keith’s. There was a wideness to his eyes that Keith couldn’t place. “Shiro?”

“I —” the words caught in Keith’s throat, well aware of how much he had given away in a few seconds of panic.

“Takashi Shirogane? The — the champion of the Queen’s Guild?” In mere seconds, Lance had crossed the room and grabbed Keith by the shoulders as if he knew the blood witch was going to run. 

Keith hadn’t realized until now that Lance stood a couple inches taller than him, so he raised his chin up to analyze Lance’s expression. His brows were furrowed, casting shadow over the ocean blue of his eyes. His lips were parted like a million words were poised at the edge of his tongue.

“He’s alive?” Lance whispered, a delicate thing that was almost lost in the shuffle of their feet across the tile floor.

In a second, fire like rage took hold in every molecule the sensation of death had commandeered.

Keith tore through the flesh on the pad of his left thumb with a gnashing of his pointed canines. Before Lance could even breathe another word, Keith had drawn a sigil on the palm of his right hand. The blood burned against his skin as it summoned his favorite dagger. The hilt was steady in his grip as he pointed the tip at Lance’s chest.

The wound on his thumb hadn’t closed, and the blood hissed when it dribbled on the floor.

“I’m sorry,” Keith said as regret soured his voice and made his dagger tremble in his grip, “but I can’t put Shiro in danger.”

Lance raised his hands, skin paled and eyes wider than Keith had ever seen. “Wait, what —”

Keith swallowed the bile that burned at the back of his throat and the hesitation that screamed in his lungs. Shiro would never approve of this — would never condone the death of another for his own safety. But Keith only had Shiro, the only person in his life that he would sacrifice everything for. He already went into the depths of the Forrest; couldn’t he sacrifice his moral code for the sake of his best friend?

“Thank you for your help,” Keith whispered, tightening his grip on his dagger to stop his trembling. “Farewell.”

Keith pulled back the knife and drove the blade through the air, focused on the thundering pulse in Lance’s neck.

Everything Keith had done in the past year, had been for Shiro, and Keith wasn’t going to endanger his best friend just for a pair of breath-taking eyes.

“I’m destined to help Shiro!” Lance shrieked, voice tight and thin as Keith’s dagger stopped a breath away from his neck.

Keith didn’t move the blade. The world stilled around them, focused on the faint brush of the sharpened edge against Lance’s throat. Keith tilted his head to the side in a demand for more information.

Lance swallowed harshly, and the dagger threatened to prick his tanned skin. “I had a vision a year ago, around the time he disappeared, that I would play a part in rescuing him. I was so certain that it was going to happen, but it hasn’t come to pass.” His eyes narrowed as they lingered on the scar that peaked out beneath the collar of Keith’s t-shirt and the pieces of hair that curled around his throat. “I thought that I was wrong, but…” Lance’s words grew stilted in the air.

With a steadying breath, Keith felt his grip on the knife relax and the rhythmic drip of his bloody thumb slowed. “Why should I believe you?” Keith growled, words curling in the back of his throat.

“I don’t know,” Lance whispered, and his lip began to tremble, “but there was a name that came up in the vision, someone that I needed to find — ” he exhaled, closing his eyes and opening them with a steadier stance, even in the face of Keith’s dagger, “— Sendak.”

Keith dropped his hand to the side and lost his drip on the dagger entirely. It clattered to the ground and vanished in a splatter of blood. “How do you know that name?”

“Who is he?” Lance pressed forward, bracing a hand on Keith’s shoulder again like he hadn’t just been held at knifepoint.

“He was the one who took Shiro,” Keith breathed, remembering the sound of his voice, graveled and deep and menacing in a way that no other being had ever replicated. He grabbed a hold of Lance’s forearm, steadying himself as the word tilted on its axis around him. “But your vision, it hasn’t happened yet, right?”

Lance nodded, confirming Keith’s worst fears.

“So he’s coming back,” Keith whispered before collapsing to the ground and burying his head into his hands.

The boy knelt before him and pressed a hand to his shoulder. “It’ll be okay.”

“How? How the fuck is it going to be okay, Lance?” The words were ravaged, tearing through his throat and burning with swallowed tears.

“We’ll figure it out together.”

Keith glanced up, out of his hands, to look at Lance’s expression. There was a warmth and openness he had never experienced before. Shiro was the only other person in this entire world that had cared about him — and now this stranger was determined to help, even though Keith had just threatened to kill him.

“Yeah?”

“Yeah,” Lance confirmed before rising to his feet and dusting off his shirt, “now let’s have some tea okay?”

─── ･ ｡ﾟ☆: *.☽ .* :☆ﾟ. ───

Keith was once again sitting at the small table at the corner of the café, shaken and holding onto a warm mug like a mooring. Lance sat across from him, and the table was so small that their knees brushed. The boy looked no worse for wear than he had twenty minutes ago when Keith’s vision had torn him from his sanity.

They had been sitting in silence for the past five minutes.

Lance had dragged his tea bag around the rim of the mug at least ten times. But Keith couldn’t take his eyes off of the boy before him.

“What are you?” Keith asked quietly as the words accidentally tumbled off his tongue.

“A diviner, water specialty,” Lance answered, propping his elbows up on the table and lacing his fingers together. He placed his chin attop his fingers. “But that’s not what you’re asking, right?”

Keith rolled his eyes and allowed himself a moment to analyze Lance’s appearance. In the softened lighting through the gauzy drapes, Keith could see the lightest smattering of freckles along Lance’s cheeks. A dimple settled into one cheek with his lopsided smile.

“I mean, what kind of a person buys tea for someone that almost killed them?” Keith growled low enough that none of the other patrons heard him.

“The kind that knows they weren’t going to die,” Lance stage-whispered, leaning forward on the table and mimicking Keith. With a roguish smile, he pulled back and casually lounged in the plush chair. Picking at the dirt under his trim nails, he said, “The future is always up for change, but I’ve had too many visions that indicate that I’m going to live a long life. Of course, it was terrifying, but I can kind of understand. If it was my family, I would’ve done the same.” 

Keith shakes his head and peers into the swirling tea leaves that sit at the bottom of his mug.

Lance took a sip from his cup and cleared his throat. “So you rescued him from the Diabazzal Forrest?”

Glancing around the café, it seemed as though no one was listening to them, but Keith wasn’t willing to take that chance. His left thumb had almost healed over the wound from earlier, so Keith bit into his right.

Ignoring the squawk from Lance, Keith drew a small sigil on the surface of the table to disguise their conversation from any prying ears.

“Yeah, about two months ago.” Keith tightened his grip around the mug and was unable to fight back the scowl. “He’d been trapped in this —” Keith swallowed around the words, glancing out at the world through the thin curtains swaying over the window. Finding the words to describe it was difficult; the state in which Keith found Shiro could only be described as the verge of death. “It was a fighting ring, where witches had to use their magick to fight for their lives. He was mockingly titled ‘The Champion’ after his position in the Queen’s Guild.”

“It’s a miracle he was still alive then. Especially aftering being trapped in those conditions for almost a year.” Lance commented, trying to find the bright side in the tragedy.

Keith grimaced. “Barely. I don’t know how long it’d been before I got there, but he’d lost his arm. I’m not sure if it was in a battle or as a consequence of something. He doesn’t remember, and I’m glad for that. But when I got there, the wound was infected and on the verge of sepsis or gangrene. I—” Keith swallowed back the vomit that clawed up his throat. 

Leaning over the table, Keith steadied his breathing and fought down the panic attack that threatened to overthrow him.

“The wound even smelled like death,” Keith choked out, remembering the pus that oozed from the open wound and Shiro’s delirious cries. “I had to chop off another like eight inches, because there was no way we could make it out of the Forrest in time for proper medical care. Maybe if I’d gotten there sooner, I could’ve at least saved his elbow — maybe his whole arm. I just —”

The gentle weight of Lance’s fingers on Keith’s shocked him out of his downward spiral.

Lance’s eyes were kind, a weak and watery smile pulling up on his dimpled cheek. “I’m guessing Shiro hasn’t said anything like that.”

“No, but — I don’t know,” Keith sighed, pulling his hand from Lance’s delicate touch so he could take another sip of his calming tea. “And now he’s sick, and I just —”

“Sick?” Lance asked with that edge to his voice that he’d held when they were in the back room, one of barely suppressed panic.

Keith deliberately set his mug down on the table. “Yeah. He was up all night coughing. I gave him some medicine, but it didn’t seem to help.”

Lance chewed on his nail, ruining the perfectly trim manicure. “Can you take me to him? Would you?” 

Keith hesitated, instincts screaming against the idea and perpetuating the notion that the less people that knew about Shiro, the better. But Keith remembered the way that Lance hadn’t even tried to avoid the swing of his dagger, how fiercely the boy before him was ready to defend Shiro.

“Yeah,” Keith agreed as he rose from his seat.

Lance gave Keith a brilliant smile, all blinding white teeth and that dimple carved into his golden skin. Before Keith could drag him across town, Lance used the towel from his apron to wipe up Keith’s sigil on the table. “I don’t need a lecture from Marco tomorrow,” he chuckled by way of explanation.

With a goodbye to the man who sat behind the counter, Lance followed Keith out of the shop and through the city.

─── ･ ｡ﾟ☆: *.☽ .* :☆ﾟ. ───

“Shiro,” Keith called out the second he’d passed the threshold of his apartment. His best friend wasn’t sitting in his usual space on the couch with his feet propped up and a documentary playing in the background. Alongside his sudden rush of anxiety, Keith felt for the thrum of his magick; it was bright and alive in his veins, indicating that the wards were still in place.

With a firm breath, Keith allowed himself to relax. The sigils hummed in his blood when Lance stepped into the apartment behind Keith, looking around for any sign of Shiro. It only affirmed that Lance had been telling the truth as the wards were set to keep out any who had ill intentions.

Keith shut the door behind them and carefully traced over the sigils on the door with a freshly bloodied thumb.

Relaxing at the sound of the familiar padding footsteps that sounded from the bathroom, Keith said, “Shiro, I brought someone home.”

“What?” Shiro yelled, throwing open the bathroom door dressed in fresh clothes. His hair was dripping onto the towel wound around his neck. His eyes widened when he saw Lance standing in Keith’s shadow. “Serrano?” Shiro breathed, shoulders relaxing at the sight of him.

“Oh my god,” Lance cried out, rushing past Keith to stand in front of Shiro. “I can’t believe it. You’re alive! It’s so good to see you.” Without hesitation, Lance threw his arms around Shiro and buried him in a hug.

Shiro exhaled a shaky laugh and wrapped his arm around Lance. “It’s good to see you too, Lance.”

Keith hated how unsteady he felt in their presence, how off kilter their interactions set him. It was clear that they were comfortable around each other, but he had never heard Shiro mention Lance.

They broke from the embrace and Shiro placed a warm hand on Lance’s shoulder. “Keith, how did you find Lance?”

“At my café,” Lance answered instead.

“Café?” Shiro’s gaze was questioning, and Keith withered beneath it, because he knew an explanation was coming.

Lance scratched at the back of his neck, drawing Shiro’s gaze from Keith. “Oh yeah, I started it after you…” he cleared his throat, “The paladins kind of collapsed without you, so I started it after, well, everything. It’s a café that has prophetic drinks.”

Shiro’s eyes narrowed when he glanced back to Keith, and he knew exactly what Shiro was thinking — he hadn’t exactly hidden the fact that he’d disliked the thought of peering into the future.

“How do you two know each other?” Keith asked, forcing his arms to uncross and to relax in his own home.

Shiro’s smile was a little watery when he answered, “Lance was training to be in my team at the Guild.”

Lance bumped his shoulder against Shiro and slapped his own curled bicep. “Yeah! The mighty Queen’s Paladins.”

“How is everyone? Hunk? Pidge?” Shiro asked Lance, directing him towards the couch so they could speak.

Keith knew that he was welcome to join them and listen in about old stories and battles won and lost, but it made him feel like a stranger. He didn’t really want to hear about the Guild that had forced Shiro into the depths of the Diabazzal Forrest, only to declare him dead without sending a single search team. Keith had even volunteered.

Instead, he tuned out their conversation, as they talked about old times and old colleagues. He chose to focus on making tea for them to share, something calming with chamomile and ginger. He kept glancing up to see Shiro’s shoulders shake with laughter, and it seemed that maybe the sickness had passed.

Keith couldn’t help but smile at the brightness returning to Shiro’s demeanour.

Just as Keith was putting the kettle on the stove, Shiro coughed so hard it seemed to rattle his lungs. The kettle tumbled to the burner, spilling water across the stovetop and sizzling against the heated surface.

“Shiro!” Lance gasped, and Keith turned at the alarm in Lance’s voice.

Shiro was hunched over with his hand pressed to the coffee table to keep him steady. He was suddenly pale. Strands of his wet hair tumbled into his face, hiding the worst of the pain behind tendrils of white. Coughs wracked his body, and his shoulders jolted and trembled with each hacking wheeze. The sound echoed through the room like the toll of the singular church bell.

Lance jumped to Shiro’s side, pressing his palms against his chest to steady him.

Without another thought, Keith spurred into action and sprinted across the room.

Five minutes later, they had soothed the cough and forced Shiro to relax in his typical position on the couch. His body was limp, draped over a couple pillows to prop him up. With his eyes closed and the rumble of his breathing, Keith could almost pretend he was asleep.

Lance grabbed a hold of Keith’s elbow and dragged him across the apartment. They huddled by the stove, sharing hushed whispers. “My friend would know what’s wrong with him, Keith. We can’t just leave him like this,” Lance hissed, motioning to Shiro’s still body on the couch.

Keith pulled his hands from his hair, uncaring if the strands that caught in his fingers tore from his scalp. “No one can know he’s here though. If Sendak finds out —”

“What if he already has.” Lance’s back was straight, eyes narrowed, and chin held taut.

Keith curled his fingers into the front of Lance’s hand-print stained shirt. “What the hell do you know, Lance? What did you see?”

“Nothing,” Lance hissed while he grabbed a hold of Keith’s clenched fists. He pulled his shirt from Keith’s grasp. “But it’s a possibility, so will you let me call Shay or not?”

Keith crossed his arms and bit the inside of his cheek.

There were so many things that could go wrong, so many ways that Sendak could find them — one little mention and the entire Kingdom would know of Shiro’s miraculous survival.

Glancing over to the couch, the anxiety over Shiro’s discovery paled in the light of the fear that coated his lungs like tar. Shiro hardly looked like himself two months ago when Keith had torn him from the Forrest’s grasp, and now he was like a ghost haunting his own body.

“They swear a blood oath before they even hear about Shiro,” Keith countered with a firmness to his voice that didn’t allow for debate.

“Deal.” Lance’s shoulders sagged with relief as he pulled out his phone and made a few phone calls.

─── ･ ｡ﾟ☆: *.☽ .* :☆ﾟ. ───

It all happened in a whirlwind.

In the parking lot of his building, he’d met Lance’s friends — emphasis on friends.

“I thought it was just the one,” Keith hissed at Lance as the trio marched up to them.

They looked familiar, but Keith couldn’t really place where he knew them from — maybe in passing at the Guild. The tallest man was dark skinned with a broad chest, but the hunch to his shoulders and the anxious biting of his nails made him appear so much smaller. A girl had a hand pressed to his back as she dragged him forward; she stood up to the man’s shoulder and wore a grim expression. Her skin was olive toned, and golden hoops flashed through her dark hair, styled in a short bob that curled just under her chin. The smallest person was a face he remembered, so similar to Matt Holt, with glasses and that trademark mischievous smile to match.

“Well, where Shay goes Hunk tends to come along. And when Hunk goes somewhere Pidge is bound to come out of curiosity's sake. They’re kind of like a package deal.” Lance explained like he was describing teams in an elementary school kickball game rather than a game of life and death.

Keith snarled under his breath but followed Lance as he closed the gap between their two groups.

“Shay!” Lance reached out and pulled the taller girl in for a hug and away from the man she was bolstering. “Thank you so much for coming.”

“What’s going on, Lance? And why is Keith Kogane here?” Pidge asked as she pushed up her glasses.

“That’s the interesting part,” Lance drawled like he was telling an interesting story, enticing them all before dropping the conditions of hearing the ending, “but I can’t tell you yet?”

Hunk reached forward and grabbed a hold of Shay’s arm. “Why? What’s going on?”

“It’s a really delicate situation, so we’re going to need you to do something before we can tell you,” Lance began.

Keith stepped forward and cut in. “You’ll have to agree to a blood oath.”

Lance sent him the dirtiest glare as the trio exploded into questions at a steadily increasing volume. It was clear that Lance breaking the news would have been a better idea.

But somehow fifteen minutes later with a freshly healing cut on his palm, they were all filtering into his apartment.

“Shiro,” Pidge gasped the second she saw him on the couch. “How? When?”

Shay ran to his side and placed her palms against his chest. Flares of yellow bubbled up from her hands like a fountain of light. Closing her eyes, it was clear that she was tracing the source of the sickness.

Hunk stood frozen at the threshold to the living room, eyes filled with tears and jaw open.

“About two months ago,” Keith admitted, walking into the kitchen and finally picking up the kettle from earlier. “Tea?”

─── ･ ｡ﾟ☆: *.☽ .* :☆ﾟ. ───

Lance, Hunk, Pidge, and Keith all gathered around the kitchen as he poured steaming water onto his homemade tea blend. The story of how he’d rescued Shiro, found Lance, and brought them all together was fresh on his tongue. Pidge had nodded along with an analytical expression like she was waiting to poke holes in his story. Hunk had stopped crying, but there was a grateful expression on his face that echoed in Keith’s own heart; he knew that he had looked similar when he found Shiro amongst Sendak’s medical staff.

“And now we’re here, trying to figure out what’s wrong,” Lance mumbled. He pulled a cup of tea towards himself and delicately wrapped his hands around the circumference. While the tea steeped, they let the information sink in.

Another ten minutes passed when Shay finally rose from the floor beside the couch. She slowly walked into the kitchen and grabbed the cup Keith had poured for her. Her face looked gaunt, and dark bags that weren’t there in the parking lot stained the skin beneath her eyes.

“It’s not good news, is it?” Lance asked, but they all knew the answer before Shay spoke.

“I’m afraid not.” Shay’s voice was quiet, threadbare and on the edge of raw. She took a small sip of her tea, and Keith watched the way the mug trembled in her grasp. “It’s not a natural sickness, nothing that I or any professional healer could fix.”

“It’s a curse,” Keith said before Shay could continue.

She set the teacup on the counter firmly before meeting Keith’s gaze. “Yes. How did you know?”

“I thought,” he swallowed against the mounting horror. “He has a brand on his lower back, and I just assumed it was another method of torture, but…” Keith let the words trail off as everyone seemed to draw the same conclusion.

“Could you break it?” Lance’s hands curled against the edge of the counter, like he was already aware of the outcome of his question.

Shay shuddered an exhale. “Possibly, but even with Hunk and Pidge at my side, it would be very dangerous. Queen Allura is skilled in curse breaking, but I believe that even she would struggle with a curse of this magnitude.”

Keith squeezed his eyes closed and mumbled, “Carve into flesh with a burning brand, made possible by a given hand. Corruption will only rot the dead. Kill the soul, but keep the body fed. Then will you have ultimate command.”

“What was that?” Hunk whispered.

“A blood witch’s curse.” Keith turned and dumped the rest of his tea in the sink, stomach suddenly and violently roiling. Nausea crawled up the back of his throat as he realized what kind of a witch Sendak was.

Everyone always claimed that blood magick corrupted, and Sendak seemed to be a clear example of it. A monster born of quintessence and the hunger for more.

Lance pressed a hand to Keith’s back, warm and steady, and it kept him from collapsing under the weight of everything. “How do we stop it?” Lance asked, but he was using the same tone, the one that belied he already knew the answer.

“Can’t Allura still stop it?” Pidge asked.

“The surest way is to kill the caster. I’m afraid that Sendak’s magick is too powerful for even Allura to handle,” Keith whispered. His shoulders curled into himself, trembling under the steady press of Lance’s hand.

“Keith—”

But Keith cut Lance off by turning around so that they were almost chest to chest. Lance’s palm now settled against Keith’s abdomen, skin hot even through the material of Keith’s borrowed shirt. Tilting his chin up so that he could meet Lance’s gaze, Keith said, “We’re going to have to kill Sendak.”

Lance slowly closed his eyes and whispered, “I knew you were going to say that.”

─── ･ ｡ﾟ☆: *.☽ .* :☆ﾟ. ───

It was only Lance’s gentle hold on his arm that kept Keith from sprinting off into the Diabazzal Forrest with a dagger in each hand.

Hunk helped Keith move Shiro into his bedroom, tucking the sheets around him, so that he would be more comfortable. Shay pulled up a chair to sit at his left side. Grabbing his hand, she allowed her grasp to simmer with her sunshine magick.

“I can’t cure him, but I can slow the spread at least.” Shay’s smile was weak, but there was a determined edge that Keith liked.

He nodded to her before he left to settle on the couch.

In the few minutes that they had been gone, Pidge had covered the coffee table in papers — ranging from maps to itemized lists to a step-by-step instruction guide of how to find Sendak. Lance was sitting on the edge of the couch beside her with his lip tucked between his teeth. Keith was beside them as they all reviewed the plan.

After hours of discussion, the moonlight shone through the window and illuminated the redness to their eyes and the lethargy of their motions.

“No, no,” Keith cut Pidge off. “You and Hunk have to stay here to take Shiro to the queen. Lance can come with me to the Forrest.”

“But Lance doesn’t have any offensive magick,” Pidge rebutted with the same argument she’d used several times before.

“But I can find where Sendak is, Pidge.” Lance was fierce, arms crossed and teeth set on edge. He was unmoving in his decision to accompany Keith into Diabazzal.

Hunk settled a large hand on Lance’s shoulder, almost pleading with his best friend. “Keith said that the Diabazzal Forrest was hard enough to get out of before, and I don’t want you to get hurt trying to fight Sendak.”

“Just because I don’t have offensive magick, doesn’t mean that I can’t fight Sendak.” Lance pouted.

“So it’s settled then,” Keith declared and unwilling to state why he was the most comfortable with this current arrangement.

Even if Lance’s magick wasn’t offensive, Keith trusted him to watch his back more than anyone else in this group — aside from Shiro. And if he was really going to have to make the ultimate sacrifice, at least Lance was aware of the possibility.

“It’s not settled —”

“Pidge,” Lance cut her off with the quietest voice and the simple shake of his head.

Hunk’s hand tightened against Lance’s shoulder. “Your vision?”

Lance nodded before inhaling deeply, and Keith watched as he stacked up his vertebrae and pulled up the corners of his lips. It was like watching Lance don a costume of the cheerful boy he’d been at “Brewed Awakening.” Strange and otherworldly. “So Keith and I will head out tomorrow. Let’s all get some rest before the big day.”

They all agreed and almost fell asleep where they were sitting. But Keith grabbed a hold of Lance’s hand and dragged him back to his bed. “If we’re facing Sendak together tomorrow, I’m not letting you sleep on the couch, Lance.”

Lance huffed a laugh and let himself be pulled through the apartment.

Keith wanted to linger on the fact that Lance was sharing his bed in nothing more than his stained t-shirt and boxers. Wanted to linger on the tone Hunk had used when mentioning Lance’s vision. Wanted to linger on so many things, but slumber claimed him before he could even meditate on one thought.

─── ･ ｡ﾟ☆: *.☽ .* :☆ﾟ. ───

At the break of dawn, Keith rolled from the bed. His neck was stiff and his mouth tasted like ash.

Lance was perched on the farthest edge of the bed, curled into himself just like he had last night. His chest rose steadily with each breath. Slivers of gauzy morning light drifted through his blinds and lingered on the planes of Lance’s face. He looked so peaceful, and Keith wanted to let this moment last, but they had a job to do.

As Keith shoveled toast into his mouth, Pidge wandered into the kitchen and gave him a weary look. She sat beside him, hunching in one of the breakfast bar stools. Her glasses were lopsided and her hair was like a wild thing around her face. Her voice was raw when she finally spoke, “When you rescued Shiro, did you see anyone else from the Kerberos mission?”

Keith’s heart stilled at the question. The toast suddenly tasted like nothing in his mouth. He finished chewing his bite and swallowed dryly. “No, I didn’t. I’m sorry, Pidge.”

“It’s okay.” She shook her head and hunched a little deeper over the notes that had commandeered the countertop.

Before Keith could say anything else, Lance was marching out of Keith’s bedroom, fully dressed in borrowed clothes and a determined expression.

It was time to go.

─── ･ ｡ﾟ☆: *.☽ .* :☆ﾟ. ───

Keith and Lance piled into the front seat of Hunk’s car and waved goodbye to the rest of their newly-founded team. Shiro hadn’t been awake enough to say anything before they left, but that only steeled Keith’s determination.

“Alright, let’s go,” Keith sighed, gripping the wheels and pulling out of the parking lot. They drove a hundred miles to the North, toward the cold and the wind and Diabazzal Forrest.

The morning was quiet aside from Shiro’s coughs and all of their lingering exhaustion, and that mentality continued between Keith and Lance. They barely even spoke. The only noise in the car was the soft hum of the radio and the road.

But anticipation sung in the air, winding the silences tightly along their ribs.

“I’m sorry about yesterday,” Keith breathed, a quiet thing that was inline with their quiet morning.

“What part of yesterday?” Lance chuckled. He propped his feet up on the dashboard and fixed his gaze on Keith rather than the road before them.

Keith glanced at Lance out of the corner of his eye. The witch looked so relaxed, even though the tension in the air hadn’t settled and neither had either of their shoulders. “Almost killing you.”

“Didn’t I already tell you that I forgave you?” There was a lightness to Lance’s voice, and Keith realized that he couldn’t distinguish it from his normal joyful tone. But after watching Lance build himself up last night, becoming the playful, sweet man Keith had met at the café, he was skeptical of Lance’s emotions now. He wondered how much was bravado and if Lance was feeling as scared as he was beneath that debonair smile.

“Still.” Keith hunched over the wheel and transitioned between lanes.

“You were only trying to do what you thought was best for Shiro.” Lance reached over and placed a gentle hand on Keith’s shoulder. The touch barely lingered before his hand was sliding off and back to his own lap. “I respected that even then, Keith.”

Keith hummed in response, unsure how to respond to all of that.

They sat in silence again, but before it could settle around them, Lance said, “You were trained by the Guild right?”

“Yeah.” Keith slouched in his seat, rubbing at one eye with his palm while trying to focus on the road. “Shiro sponsored me through all of my schooling. It was only because of him that I was accepted in the first place. They don’t normally accept blood witches.”

Lance hummed in response before saying, “How did you meet Shiro?”

Keith huffed a laugh through his nose. “He caught me drawing sigils for warmth on the street. I was fifteen and had been kicked out of the last orphanage in the city. I caught the social workers talking about moving me out of state, and I just kind of lost it.” The words kind of tumbled out, his whole messy life story, wrapped up in a couple sentences. “So I decided to live on the streets instead, and that’s where Shiro found me.”

“Why didn’t you want to leave?” Lance’s question was innocent, but it set Keith’s teeth on edge.

“I’ve lived here my entire life. Isn’t that enough?”

“Of course it is.” Lance’s decisive tone startled Keith. He’d curled his hands against his thighs as if fighting off reaching out for Keith.

Keith forced his gaze back on the road. With a muted sigh, he let the rest of the story leave his lips, because if he was going to die within the Forrest someone else might as well know about his life. “My mother left when I was really young, so my dad raised me alone for a long time. He was a witch with a fire affinity, so he worked as a firefighter — bending flames and rescuing people. But even fire witches can succumb to flames and smoke inhalation.”

“Oh, Keith. I’m so sorry,” Lance breathed, and even though Keith was accustomed to empty platitudes, it felt nice to hear it from Lance.

“Thank you.” Keith let his gaze drift from the open stretch of road before him to glance at Lance. “What about you? I’m guessing you went to the Guild, especially if you were going to be a part of Shiro’s team.”

There was a stretch of silence between them, and with each passing minute, Keith’s shoulders rose.

“Lance—”

“So you really don’t remember me?” Lance muttered beneath his breath, almost lost beneath the hum of the road and the soft drone of the radio.

Keith almost stomped on the break so that he could look at Lance. “What?”

“Keith, I was in every single one of your classes at the Guild.” Lance’s tone was bitter, a brisk thing that Keith had never heard from the witch beside him. “You always got first place in the practicums, but maybe I was the only one who thought we were rivals. God, I feel so fucking stupid.” Lance scrubbed a hand through his hair and sighed.

Keith could barely remember anything from those first few years at the Guild. After he’d punched James Griffin for insulting Shiro, Keith had set himself on a mission to keep his head down, to focus on his studies, and do everything in his power to swallow his pride and play by their broken rules. He wouldn’t risk Shiro’s career and friendship with the queen just because his classmates didn’t accept his magick.

Instead, he focused on honing his magick — keeping it in check so that he wouldn’t turn into someone like Sendak, with too much power and rage and desire for blood.

But it seemed that all of the control and power he’d gained from his magick made him seem like a perfect candidate for the Queen’s Guild. Even if it had been a dream to work with Shiro, Keith couldn’t force himself into their mold any longer — especially with how they’d forced Shiro to journey into the Diabazzal Forrest at the slightest hint of a threat hidden beneath her trees.

Graduation was eventful when people discovered he was taking his degree and leaving the structure of the Guild. He even remembered a boy who pushed him up against the wall and pinned him with sapphire eyes. His voice was barely above a growl, “Why aren’t you moving on? You’re the most talented witch since Shiro, and yet you’re — you’re quitting?!”

Even in his memories, the eyes — like the fathomless depths of the sea — were familiar.

“You yelled at me on graduation day,” Keith whispered, shifting his gaze so that he could gauge Lance’s reaction.

“Oh, so you remember that at least?” Lance laughed darkly with the shake of his head. “Guess the only things you remember are violence, huh? I bet you remember Griffin.”

“Well, I—”

“I fucking knew it,” Lance snorted derisively. “My magick has never been very flashy or offensive, so I guess it’s no wonder why you never acknowledged me.”

“It wasn’t you, Lance. I didn’t really talk to anyone.” Keith couldn’t keep the exhausted sigh out of his voice. He chewed on his bottom lip before explaining, “I was almost expelled for that fight I had with Griffin, and Shiro had to use his position to keep me in the Guild. So after that I didn’t talk to anyone, just tried everything to not get expelled, especially since the teachers already had it out for me.”

Lance whispered, “Oh, I didn’t know that.” He scratched at the back of his neck and dropped his feet from the dashboard to the floor. “I just assumed you thought you were too good for all of us.”

Keith spared a glance from the road to give Lance a questioning expression. “Why would you think that?”

“Because you’re a rare blood witch with the power to rival Shiro, Keith,” Lance rubbed at his temples. With the flick of his wrist he motioned to the hair that settled around Keith’s collarbones. “Or I don’t know, your bad haircut.” 

“Wait, so at the café yesterday —”

“Yeah, after it was clear that you didn’t know who I was, I pretended not to know you.” At the affronted expression on Keith’s face, Lance continued, “Just think about how awkward that would’ve been, Keith.”

With a shrug, Keith relented and acknowledged that it probably would’ve been terribly awkward. He’d never been the best at social situations, and the thought of the prophetic drinks still made him wary. He probably would’ve bolted before Lance could say anything.

“But it did feel nice to be able to help you. I’ve always been jealous of your magick.” Lance’s voice was threadbare, something on the verge of cracking. “I remember the first day you drew your dagger in practicum, how I could taste your magick in the air. It was like wood smoke and iron. And there I was, a witch who could barely read Tarot cards.”

Keith could remember that day — the way the dagger felt in his hands, perfect and balanced and like it belonged there. It was magical.

But even if Keith didn’t remember Lance from the Guild, he still admired the meandering strands of his magic. It bubbled like a brook and danced like the waves of the sea. It was powerful and playful, and so different from the stinging sensation of Keith’s bitten thumb.

“I think your magick is beautiful,” Keith breathed, holding back the rest of the sentence between clenched teeth: _just like you._ Lance reared back and gave Keith the most skeptical look. “It’s true.”

Delivering a soft and playful punch to Keith’s arm, Lance said, “Aw, don’t try to be sweet now, Kogane.”

Keith gave Lance a genuine smile before turning his attention back to the road. They settled into a companionable silence, and Keith could’ve sworn that something had changed between them.

─── ･ ｡ﾟ☆: *.☽ .* :☆ﾟ. ───

Two hours out from the Diabazzal Forrest, they stopped for gas, coffee, and a bathroom break. The gas station was so run down that it looked haunted, but they pulled in anyway. Lance filled up Hunk’s car while Keith ran in and purchased a bag full of snacks and two cups of the sludgiest coffee he’d ever seen.

When they piled back in the car, Lance took the driver’s seat.

As they drove closer and closer to the Forrest, something in the air began to change. Like static electricity or the charged atmosphere before a lightning strike. It was powerful and old, and it set Keith’s bones alight.

Keith pulled at the edge of his leather gloves and refused to glance over at Lance as he asked, “Is this all part of your vision? Hunk mentioned it last night, and it convinced both of them to let you come.”

“Not all of this.” Lance motioned to the car and the road before him with his coffee. He took a sip before blindly setting it in the cup holder. “But Diabazzal Forrest is.” There was a weight to Lance’s voice that Keith wanted to attribute to the charge in the air.

“You’re not going to tell me about it, are you?” Keith hissed, tension coiling in his lungs and muscles. His teeth were on edge at the haunting possibility of his own vision. “Is it because I’m going to die?”

Lance gasped and the car swerved under the sudden clench of his fingers. “Keith —” 

“Shiro is like a brother to me. I would do _anything_ for him.” Keith was steadfast, crossing his arms and fighting off the chill his last vision had left him with.

It was true. He would do anything for Shiro. It was less than twenty four hours ago that he was willing to kill Lance just to keep Shiro safe. So it was only fair that he would be willing to sacrifice his life for Shiro as well.

He just didn’t want to admit how much the possibility scared him.

His life had never been the best, and yet, he had never wanted to die. Instead, he fought fiercely to stay alive.

But for Shiro — for the person that pulled him off the streets, gave him a home and purpose, and became the best friend someone could ask for — for the person who was genuine and kind and _good_ — Keith would give anything.

“I know,” Lance whispered.

The road hummed beneath them, and it was the only sound in the car.

“Lance, are you going to tell me or not?” Keith didn’t sound as demanding as he felt; it was a quiet murmur, because he knew the answer even if Lance didn’t respond.

Lance’s fingers tightened around the steering wheel, turning the golden tan of his skin white with the force. “It’s not always a gift to know the future, Keith. Please just let me focus on doing my job in all of this.”

Keith crossed his arms and slumped in the passenger seat, watching as the Diabazzal Forrest loomed before them, like a colossal titan or an open, gaping mouth.

All too soon, they parked in the last stretch of land before the beginning of the Forrest. The road ended with a large blockade and signs for u-turns just a couple yards from the start of the Forrest.

Even from outside, you could tell when the Forrest began. It was from the slightly different shade of green. Or the way the shadows of the leaves shifted against the ground, like they were alive or hungry or watching. The grass was lusher, feeding off something more than sunlight and water. Even on the edges where the tree cover was the thinnest, a lone tree with gnarled branches looked like it was ready to snag on Keith’s clothing and drag him to the depths of the Forrest.

Standing on the brink, Keith could feel the weight of eyes upon him, because the Forrest was always watching.

“Ready?” Lance asked, hands curled to fists at his sides and a camelbak full of water slung across his back.

“As I’ll ever be,” Keith announced before crossing the threshold and stumbling into the Diabazzal Forrest for the second time in his life.

It was like a cold wind dragged across his skin, but the sensation was too heavy for air and no sound that accompanied the sensation. A chill crept up the back of his neck. Keith glanced around, knowing full well that he wouldn’t see anyone watching. The Forrest seemed to welcome him back, eager branches snagged at his jacket and tugged him deeper.

Lance was only steps behind him, and Keith fought against the urge to charge into the depths of the Forrest and outrun the feeling of eyes upon him.

“I’m going to use dowsing now,” Lance announced, pulling a thin silver chain from his pocket with a small ring on one side and a metal ball on the other. He threaded his finger through the ring and held his palm parallel to the ground. The ball held perfectly still on the chain before it started to pull north.

Keith motioned for Lance to start, following slowly behind him as they were directed through the Forrest by the will of a metal ball.

“Did you know that dowsing has been done since the 16th century to help find water for wells?” Lance asked as they made their way deeper into the thickness of trees. “When I was training for the Queen’s Guild, Queen Allura helped me adapt it as a way to find whatever I’m looking for. Comes in pretty handy when I can’t find my cell phone,” Lance laughed at his own joke.

Keith chuckled under his breath, but he refused to speak loud enough for the Forrest to hear them over their thunderous steps. Each footfall crushed twigs and dried leaves — even if the foliage still bloomed with summertime.

“Do you remember how far into the Forrest the camp was last time?” Lance asked after they had been walking for over an hour.

Keith could see Lance’s arm trembling from holding out the dowsing pendulum this entire time. “I don’t know. Time doesn’t really feel real here, especially when you’re alone.”

He remembered walking for days. Following the sounds of brooks and streams only to find dried up riverbeds. Or how the sky darkened and turned the Forrest to something sinister, diabolical in the most base sense. But how it would lighten mere minutes or hours later.

Lance hummed as an answer.

“What do you know about Sendak?” Lance asked when they made camp hours and hours later. The sky had darkened, but light still danced around them. They sat at the base of a huge oak tree, so wide that Keith couldn’t envelope it in his arms, and curled around a small fire made of twigs and underbrush.

Keith snapped a twig in half and fed it to the flames. “He’s a beast. I swear he’s more demon than man.” He could feel a sour trill run down his back, roiling his stomach and burning in his lungs. “I only saw him from a distance when I rescued Shiro, and among all of the prisoners and his loyal soldiers, he looked larger than life. I suspected he was a blood witch when I found Shiro, but I didn’t want to entertain the possibility. And with the use of the curse...” Keith trailed off, not letting himself linger on the memory that pulled at the back of his mind.

“What does the curse do?” Lance asked, leaning forward and closer to the flames. “You seemed familiar with it,” he prompted when silence had grown too stout between them.

“My mother used to sing it as a nursery rhyme.” Keith hummed the tune, remembering warmth and summertime and the softest brush of fingertips through his hair. “It was only at the Guild that I learned how powerful it truly was.”

“Yeah?”

Keith savagely tore off a piece of jerky and chewed it as he contemplated how to phrase it. “Well, you know the three immutable facts of magick, right?”

Lance rolled his eyes with a playful lift to one corner of his mouth, highlighting his dimple on that singular cheek. “Yes, Keith. I know you don’t remember, but I did attend the Guild with you.”

“Oh, shut up,” Keith joked, bumping his shoulder with Lance. But at the supportive touch of Lance beside him, Keith couldn’t find it in himself to pull away. In the oppressive air of the Forrest, Lance was an anchor that he hadn’t expected.

“Well, since you want me to impress you with my straight A’s,” Lance cleared his throat. “The first law of magick is that magick can’t be created from nothing; something of equal value must be given. The second is that for every cast, magick must be bound to something like water or blood, for example. And the third is that magick cannot be used to control others.”

Keith chewed on his bottom lip before closing his eyes and remembering the day he found the dusty tome in the restricted section of the library. “The curse is used to have complete and utter control over someone.”

Lance gasped and turned towards him with a shocked and disbelieving expression. But Keith couldn’t face him.

“If it’s done correctly,” Keith began, forcing the tremor out of his voice, “the hoktril curse will allow the caster to control whoever they wish.”

“That’s impossible.” Lance’s voice was threadbare as he stiffened under Keith’s gentle lean. 

“I didn’t believe in it either before I saw Sendak’s fortress. It was manned by mindless creatures. Almost misshaped to the point of inhumanity. And yet they still patrolled the grounds and almost killed me before Shiro and I could escape.” Keith’s arms curled around himself, and he burrowed a little deeper into Lance’s side when his arm slung over Keith’s shoulders. “I know it sounds like fiction, but I promise you that it’s not.”

Lance’s grip tightened on Keith’s shoulder. He whispered, “I believe you, but I just can’t believe something like that exists.”

“I don’t think it’s supposed to.”

They sat in silence — well, as silent as the Forrest ever was. There was the distant sound of rustling leaves and the cry of wind. Before them, the fire crackled and provided the only warmth for miles.

“Do you think Shiro is going to turn out like one of those,” Lance swallowed around the word, “creatures?”

“I hope not. Gods, I hope not.” Keith buried his face in his hands, forcing himself not to remember the utter mindlessness of those creatures. The stumbling, the glassy-eyed look, the feral teeth and tongue. “But I’m not going to chance it. The only way to make sure is to kill Sendak or die trying.”

“But how are we supposed to beat him?” Lance said softly, a genuine question that held no mocking edge or skepticism.

Keith tipped his head back with a snorted laugh. He attempted to pick out stars between the thick leaves of the canopy, but he couldn’t even be sure if it was night outside of the Diabazzal Forrest. “I told Shiro that the only way to kill a demon is fire.”

Lance fed another log to the flames before them and whispered, “Well, let’s roast him up.”

It wasn’t that funny, but Keith couldn’t help his laughter. It tumbled out of him in gentle trills, and beneath his cheek, he could feel Lance’s chest rumble in response.

When Keith marched into the Diabazzal Forrest this morning, he would’ve sworn that he would’ve walked until he dropped from exhaustion, and even then he wouldn’t sleep within the grasp of the Forrest. But now, he closed his eyes and snuggled into the warmth of Lance’s chest and allowed himself to feel safety within his arms.

Within the span of a single breath, Keith allowed himself to sleep.

─── ･ ｡ﾟ☆: *.☽ .* :☆ﾟ. ───

They started walking early the next morning, and it was only twenty minutes later when Lance groaned and dropped his head to his side. Keith turned to face him with his teeth set on edge and eyes casting towards the trees around them. But no one appeared at Lance’s loud moan.

Lance instead was rubbing out the soreness of his forearm, having exhausted himself holding his arm out straight yesterday.

Keith closed the distance between them in a few strides. “Let me,” he whispered as he shooed Lance’s hand away and dug both of his thumbs into the meat of Lance’s bicep. The water witch let out a low groan at the sensation.

The skin beneath his fingertips was warm to the touch, and Keith relished in the gentle massage.

“Would it help if we splinted it so that you didn’t have to exert so much energy holding out your arm?” Keith asked, and with Lance’s agreement, they’d picked up two twigs and bound them to Lance’s arm.

He extended his hand out in front of him and let the dowsing rod point east.

“How’s that?”

“Much better,” Lance sighed as the exhaustion leaked out of his shoulders. “Thank you, Keith.”

Keith shrugged in response and turned towards the direction the pendulum pointed. “No problem,” he brushed off as he continued walking, blatantly ignoring the flush of color that dominated his cheeks.

Hours later, the stench of rotted flesh crept through the trees like a commandeering fog. It was faint, curling around the gentle scent of damp earth and decaying leaves. Keith almost didn’t notice it, taking it for a nearby dead animal or a characteristic of the Forrest that emerged the deeper they traveled.

But it only got stronger with each step in line with the dowsing rod.

When Keith squinted, just beyond the horizon of trees, he could see a grey wall — like the insurmountable side of a mountain. What was beyond the stretch of land that separated them? If Keith stopped long enough to draw in the sensations of the Forrest around him, would he feel the all knowing eyes of Sendak settle upon his skin or the wrongness that lingered in the air like miasma?

Lance stopped abruptly, and Keith almost crashed into him. His arms braced himself against Lance’s back, peering over his shoulder at the stumbling figure marching between the trees twenty feet away.

“Unbind me,” Lance hissed, shoving his splinted arm against Keith’s abdomen.

With burning fingers, Keith quickly pulled the ties from Lance’s arm, letting him drop the dowsing rod and shove it into his pocket.

“Are we here?” Keith asked even though he already knew the answer.

Lance swallowed stiffly and nodded. “I think so.”

“Me too.”

Lance nodded his head towards the figure that stumbled and swayed like it was unsteady on its feet. “You think that’s one of the hoktril victims?”

Keith allowed himself to analyze the figure’s gait, the way they swayed and walked like all of the bones in their legs were broken. It was unnatural. It was an abomination of magick and quintessence.

“Yeah.”

“Do you think it’s the reason for that smell?” Lance wiped at his nose and shook his head. The scent of rot had only intensified as the soldier stumbled closer and closer to their hiding spot. “Because it certainly smells like the dead,” Lance commented.

Keith forced himself to inhale, holding back a gag at the magnitude of the stench. “Yeah, but it’s too pungent to be from just one.”

“What are you suggesting?” Lance hissed with an edge to his voice that Keith couldn’t place.

“I wasn’t —” Keith caught himself, eyes scanning the fortress and the scent of decay that polluted the air of the Forrest. His voice was a hushed whisper, “Lance? Why was Shiro sent to the Diabazzal Forrest in the first place?”

Lance stumbled on the words in a quiet rush, “It was to hunt down a potential threat to the crown, a possible rogue witch with a vendetta against Queen Allura.” Lance’s gasp was sharp. His eyes turned wide to Keith, and it was clear what the edge to his voice had been earlier: fear. 

“ _Sendak?_ ” Keith whispered with an unfamiliar tightness to his voice.

“He’s the threat to not only Shiro but the entire kingdom,” Lance hissed, hands curling to fists at his sides.

Keith’s breath caught before he could speak — teeth set on edge as he spied another series of soldiers marching past, clearly following a set pattern. “Sendak has been gathering people and using the hoktril curse to turn them into his mindless slaves. He’s — he’s building an army.”

A tense silence settled between them, burning and heavy with the weight of the information they’d just figured out — the knowledge that threatened to die with them if they didn’t succeed.

“But there has to be some drawback for the caster,” Lance hissed, grabbing the front of Keith’s jacket and shaking him back and forth. “It’s not just a suppression of knowledge that has kept people from using the curse. There has to be some consequence to him, and all we need to do is find it out —”

“— and exploit it,” Keith finished with a growing smile on his face as he grabbed ahold of Lance’s hands and held them between them. “Alright, let’s scout out the area from a distance before we do anything. You go left and I’ll go right, and we’ll meet up on the other side.”

Keith dropped Lance’s hands and took a step to the right. Before he could get any farther, Lance grabbed his wrist.

“I’m not sure we should split up,” Lance whispered.

In a split second, Keith’s vision of the future returned to him in a flash of colors and sensations. He stumbled out of Lance’s grip and heaved a sigh, hoping to stop the sudden uptick of his heartbeat. “It’ll take too long if we go together.”

“But it’s worth it to take longer if we know we’re both safe —”

“Shiro doesn’t have this kind of time, Lance!” Keith hissed, grabbing hold of Lance’s shoulders. “We already stopped last night, and we can’t afford to let Sendak live another day.”

“Keith —”

“I’ll be fine,” he assured, even though his palms were beginning to sweat beneath the leather of his fingerless gloves. “I’ll see you on the other side?”

“Yeah. I’ll meet you there. Don’t be late.” Lance’s voice was a command more than anything else, but he gave Keith a two-finger salute and headed west.

Keith crouched low, curtailing his steps so that they barely made any noise beneath the soft breeze. The sensation of a gaze upon his back didn’t leave. It traipsed up and down his spine, but after hours and hours within the confines of these trees, Keith had almost learned to ignore it.

With each step closer, he could see the outline of the fortress. It was carved of stone and matted mud, packed in a way to make it disappear between the pillars of trees. If it weren’t for the overwhelmingly potent stench of rot, Keith might not have noticed it.

That first hoktril victim they saw wasn’t the last. Between the trees, Keith could spy their staggering bodies. They stumbled and fell, and with each footfall closer, he could hear their grunts and cries of pain — it was like it hurt them even to move.

A victim had fallen, stumbling away from their post, and Keith was curious enough to chance a closer look. He wanted to see what they looked like without distance between them.

But he didn’t dare get close enough for them to notice him.

It was a man, leaning against the tree in threadbare clothes. His skin looked like it was on the verge of rot, rigor mortis pulling at the flesh and keeping it tight against his bones. Long scratches were carved down his flesh, but the jagged ends of the wound were curled back like the dry skin of a cooking hog. But the most startling thing about the man was that he only had one arm, chopped just above the wrist like Shiro’s had been originally.

_Carve into flesh with a burning brand,_  
_Made possible by a given hand._  
_Corruption will only rot the dead._  
_Kill the soul, but keep the body fed._  
_Then will you have ultimate command._

Bile burned at the back of Keith’s throat. When he stood up a little too quickly, blood rushed to his head and made the world dizzy around him.

Keith was about to sprint to his meeting spot with Lance as quickly as possible.

But a voice stopped him.

“What a pleasure. I normally have to invite guests myself, but it seems we have a volunteer.” The voice was deep and rumbling, and it froze Keith’s blood. It sounded so familiar, haunting without a face and without a name.

Keith jumped back, thumb poised at his mouth — ready to draw blood and his dagger — only to see the man before him.

He towered above Keith, would even be head and shoulders above Shiro. With broad shoulders and muscles that were clearly defined beneath his loose clothes, he was a beast of a man. His grin was feral with yellowed teeth and gums that pulled back from the root, blackened and bleeding behind the twisted smile. Keith’s eyes lingered on the grin before darting up to the eyes of the man. One was gouged out, and the only thing that hinted of its presence was the scar that bisected his eye socket, settling deep in the new groove and ending in the apple of his cheek. His only eye settled on Keith with a yellowed sclera and burst blood vessels.

“Sendak,” Keith breathed before tearing into the pad of his thumb. His blood dripped onto the Forrest floor with a burning hiss.

Sendak’s smile broadened as he leaned forward, leaned down, leaned over Keith. He was close enough that Keith could smell blood on his rotting breath as he spoke, “Ah, you must be the one the Champion spoke of: the little orphan boy.”

Keith reached for his right palm to draw the familiar sigil for his dagger. But his hand was snatched into the air before his thumb even touched his skin. In a breath, he was dangling above the foliage, hanging from a single wrist in Sendak’s grip. Ragged fingernails bit in the tender flesh of his inner forearm.

Sendak tsked. “We can’t have you fighting back, now can we?” With that same smirking smile, he brought Keith’s thumb to his lips and licked up the blood that had dribbled from the open wound. His tongue was like sandpaper as it scratched against his skin. “Now, the champion failed to mention that you were a blood witch. A very special find indeed.”

With his other hand — crafted of fine metal and magicked to move with his very thought — Sendak cradled Keith’s jaw, forcing him to look up. The tips of his nails pressed into the meat of Keith’s cheeks.

Keith bit the inside of his cheek, allowing his mouth to fill with blood while Sendak spoke.

“You should join me, little one. We both know you’ve never belonged within the confines of the kingdom. The Forrest calls to you, like it calls to all of its children.” His tone was a dark purr, something meant to be convincing and comforting but only made Keith’s skin crawl.

He couldn’t stop the shock on his face at Sendak’s implication.

“You didn’t know? There is only one way a blood witch can be made.” Sendak’s hands dug a little deeper as his grin grew into a sadistic twist. “Someone else must be sacrificed to the Forrest for the Forrest to grant its power to another. We are the same, you see. We come from sacrifice and so we crave more and more. We are born to want power, to want control, to consume and leach off the land just like the very Forrest we are born from.

“It’s natural to want. Because we deserve it all. What are the lives of these men to us? They are a dime a dozen, so weak beneath the power of the hoktril.” Sendak pried his hand from Keith’s jaw and motioned to the fortress and the army he’d amassed.

Keith wanted to speak, but blood was slowly filling his mouth. So instead, he turned his gaze away from Sendak. He ignored the burning ache in his wrist and the burning rage in his chest.

“I must admit, I never thought the Champion would break. You know the hoktril can only take what has already been lost. Sanity, control, one’s will to live, one’s independence, one’s health. All of these things leave my volunteers eventually.” Sendak couldn’t seem to stop the twisted chuckle that tore from his chest, dark and bitter and smelling of rot.

Keith gasped, almost choking on the blood gathering in his mouth. All of these people had been tortured to the point of reanimated death?

“I knew the Champion would be mine. A man can only survive so long after everything I put him through.” Sendak once again motioned to the fortress crafted in the middle of the Diabazzal Forrest. His gaze had a feral glint to it when he said, “With him leading this army, we’ll take the kingdom in days.”

Keith couldn’t stop the growl in the back of his throat. He tilted his chin up to meet Sendak’s singular eye. With as much force as possible, Keith spit the blood across the demon’s face, splattering his cheeks in a rain of red. It sizzled as it hit his skin, burning the flesh.

With a scream, Sendak dropped Keith to the earth. Keith crawled away, getting to his feet and drawing his dagger as the demon scrubbed at the scalding blood.

Keith fumbled for his voice, ready to call out to Lance for backup — but the knowledge that Lance didn’t have offensive magick tore through Keith like a wildfire. Keith could barely hold his own against Sendak, wrought with power to the point of inhumanity. Would Lance only be a hostage if Keith couldn’t protect them both?

There had to be something else he could do, someway to leverage his position and throw Sendak off his rhythm.

So instead of calling for Lance, Keith stumbled backward and grabbed a hold of the nape of the nearest hoktril victim — the one that had allowed Sendak to creep up on him unnoticed.

“Let Shiro go,” Keith growled when Sendak finally swiped the last of the blood off his face.

His grin was pointed and sharp and his singular eye narrowed. “That’s not possible.”

Keith pressed the dagger to the hoktril victim’s neck. It pierced the flesh and a droplet of viscous, black blood rolled down the length of its chest. “ _Make it possible_.”

“Is that supposed to be a threat?” Sendak pointed at the soldier in Keith’s grasp — his clawing hands that pried at Keith and the gnashing jaws that weren’t close enough to sink into flesh. “Do you really think I care about the cannon fodder?”

“No, I don’t.” Keith slashed across the soldier’s throat, sending him to the ground in a pile of rotting flesh. “But I guess that probably wasn’t peaceful either.”

Sendak’s face twisted up in poorly hidden agony. The magicked hand spasmed as if quintessence was syphoned directly from his blood. With the sudden clench of his fists, Sendak tilted his chin up and hissed, “Don’t try to outlive your welcome, boy.”

“So, I was right, huh?” Keith flipped the dagger in the air and settled into a fighting stance.

With the snap of Sendak’s fingers, four figures stumbled from the fortress. “It’s a shame you didn’t accept my offer, but at least I will enjoy killing you.”

The soldiers had gaping mouths, fingers reaching and clawing or swords poised in their singular open palm. It was with a single-minded focus that they marched through the Forrest and towards Keith.

He charged them with a snarl biting at the back of his throat. The first one he came upon was wearing a threadbare, red shirt and brandished a sword with little skill. His dagger cut through thin skin, sinking too easily into their flesh — decayed as it was. It’s singular hand fell to the ground with a gelatinous thud.

But he didn’t realize that they weren’t slowed by his strikes, that their focus didn’t waver through any amount of pain.

It tipped its heads back and screamed with splattering spittle and cold-blooded rage. And in a second, it was gnashing its teeth and attempting to tear Keith’s flesh off bite by bite.

He jumped out of the way only to bump into another hoktril that had surrounded him. The sword sliced against his thigh, barely cutting through his jeans and the top layer of his skin.

Keith hissed and slashed his dagger across its throat. Its head rocked back, hinged on the little flesh left attached, before it collapsed to the ground.

Before Keith had a second to breathe, the one with the severed hand charged forward with bared teeth and a snarl. With the quick flick of his blade, Keith sunk his dagger into the meat of the undead soldier’s neck. It stopped moving and dropped to the ground like garbage.

“It’s the neck,” Keith breathed, but before he could turn his attention to the other hoktril victims, electricity jolted through his stomach. All sound around him stopped. There was nothing else except for the sudden bitterly cold spot just above his left hip.

Keith glanced down to see the glint of silver jutting from his abdomen. 

“You didn’t think you were the only blood witch able to summon a weapon, did you?” Sendak whispered.

Keith almost couldn’t hear the condescension in Sendak’s tone as he spit up blood. It splattered against the foliage and sizzled, sparks igniting and quickly dowsing in the damp underbrush. His hands fumbled at the hilt of the sword jutting from his stomach.

With the flick of his wrist, Sendak pulled the blade from Keith’s skin with a sickening squelch.

Blood gushed around his fingers. Even with his accelerated healing, Keith knew he couldn’t live through this. He stumbled to his knees, fingers dipping into the gaping space in his stomach. He could feel the edges of skin and organs that fluttered around his fingertips.

Lance’s words echoed through his mind, _“It seems that sacrifice could be something greater than repentance. The hanged man’s journey is a lonely one, Keith —”_

Sendak squatted down beside Keith. He grabbed a hold of Keith’s hair with his magicked hand and spit in his face, “I know you haven’t come here alone. Did you drag the Champion with you? I dearly wish to see him in his last moments of humanity.” He dropped Keith’s head to the ground as a pleasured edge curled in his voice, “Will you call out for him to save you? Will you lead him right to me?”

Keith thought of Lance, of the boy who smiled and gave everything his all — who would help a classmate that he hated, whose smile could light up a whole room, who could entertain and include an entire room of people.

He would rather die here in the grasp of Sendak and the Forrest than lead this demon to Lance’s side. Maybe Lance could regroup with the Guild and they could march into through the trees and end Sendak’s reign of terror forever.

But that could only happen if Lance survived.

_“— but you don’t have to do everything alone.”_

And maybe, Keith could have it all. But that could only happen if Keith led Sendak to Lance rather than unsuspectingly drawing the water witch to his side.

He knew that if he could speak, Sendak would torture the cries out of him — draw Lance to them with the sound of Keith’s death throes. 

There was only one option.

Keith pressed one hand against the wound in his side as the other brought the collar of his shirt between his teeth. With the snapping of his hand, he tore the shirt down the middle. His fingers were already bloody enough to draw the sigil — the one that prevented speech.

It was carved at the juncture of his two collarbones and down the length of his chest. He was afraid that due to the tremble of his fingers, the sigil would be incomplete. But the magick burned, singing in his weakening veins with power.

He tried to wheeze out Shiro’s name, and nothing but air rushed past his tongue. The frayed edges of his shirt swayed with each aching breath and threatened to stain the torn cloth.

He swayed on his knees as one hand sunk into the soft earth of the Forrest floor. The world spun around him, and he was unsure if he was going to puke or faint.

“Pity,” Sendak growled, deep and reverberating through the air and Keith’s chest. His shadow fell over him, cast upon the shifting lace of the tree limbs above. It was large enough to engulf Keith easily.

Terror jolted through his body like lightning. The voice had been cooing, a purr made purely of malice and venom. And Keith was vulnerable, swaying on his hands and knees with his back exposed to the demon behind him. He almost couldn’t think beyond the sudden lightheadedness or the steady jolt of pain that echoed from the wound with each breath.

All Keith wanted to do was run. If only he had the strength.

His tongue felt like ash in his mouth, dry and unable to form words — whether that was from the spell or the intimidation of the person behind him was unknown. A breath whistled from his chest.

A single long nail pulled a tendril of hair from his ponytail, tugging on the root with faux-tenderness. Sendak let the strand filter through his fingers. He was so close. It would take nothing for him to wrap his large hand around Keith’s neck, to snap and strangle, to tear asunder, to rend him from his body and leave him like carnage in the forest. 

Sendak purred again, dark and raspy, as hot breath gusted along the nape of Keith’s neck. “I so longed to hear you call for help. Do you think I could still make you? Do you think he would come for you, return this deep in the forest for the likes of you? Would he mourn your death or would he relish in the freedom your life provided him?”

Keith wanted to snarl a response, to bite back and rebel, but the ache in his ribs and the blinding agony of his wound told him that was unwise. The sigil burned along his skin with each shaky breath.

He knew he couldn’t speak — couldn’t allow Sendak to use his voice as a lure for Lance, for his team, for Shiro. So he bit his lip and accepted the steady burn of the sigil on his chest. He only prayed that the spell would last long enough for him to find Lance. If the sigil burned too quickly through the quintessence used to magick it into being, Keith would be at Sendak’s mercy.

And Sendak was never merciful.

“But I guess we shall see if all of this was worth it, young one,” Sendak chuckled with a dark, conspiratory edge.

The nails left his hair and the shadow retreated, but Keith could still feel the weight of the eyes upon him.

He needed to keep moving, to get to Lance. If he stayed too long, the water witch would stumble upon them — unprepared and not ready to face the wrath of Sendak.

Keith staggered to his feet, one hand braced against his wound and the other against his thigh for stability. Lightheadedness threatened to overwhelm him as he stood as tall as possible, hunched over and grasping at his wound. Collapsing against gnarled bark, he steadied himself against a tree.

The Forrest snagged on his pants as he took a shaky step forward. It called to him, desperate to have him lay among the decaying underbrush.

But his desperation to live still remained, the longing that clawed at his chest like every unspoken word.

Like hell he would let this Forrest consume him.

He wanted to call out and bring Lance to his side, but his throat tightened at even the merest thought of speaking. And the weight of Sendak’s eyes refused to leave him.

The demon surely was only several feet behind him, watching and waiting like a predator on the hunt. It was clear that this was a game, and Sendak was familiar with the terrain. The Forrest almost completely hid his presence.

Keith’s feet sank into the softened earth even as underbrush clung to his pants and tore at his exposed skin. It was like every piece of the Forrest longed to have him stay, to bury himself in their twisted branches and gnarled roots, to lay himself down along the damp earth and be consumed by fungi and animals, feeding them with his very essence.

Maybe it wasn’t the Forrest but the coldness that seemed into his skin and from the gaping wound at his side. He pressed his palms against it as he pushed on. Desperation gnashed through his ribs like a prisoner rattling against their cage.

“Keith?” Lance’s voice drifted across the quiet winds of the Forrest — trying to search for him while also avoiding alerting Sendak and his undead army. There was a panicked quality to Lance’s voice, shrill in its dread and hysteria. Keith knew that he had taken too long to reach their rendezvous spot.

Keith turned on his feet, allowing the Forrest to sink its claws into his legs, to pull at his body as he stood still — listening for the origin of Lance’s voice.

He almost wanted to march in another direction, lead Sendak’s haunting gaze away from Lance. But he knew that it was only a matter of time before they had to face down the demon.

And this, small as it may be, was all that he could do to warn Lance.

The quiet of his steps, the rasp of his breathing, the determination to walk towards Lance rather than call Lance and an army of the undead to his side with his tortured screams.

There was no sign of anyone nearby. There were only large oak trees with vines dangling from the highest branches, swaying in the gentle wind that had once carried the achingly-familiar scream. The shadows shifted as the sun peeked from behind the clouds and shone on the canopy above. The leaves shifted in that breeze and cast lace like shadows upon the earth.

He took a tentative step forward, pulling from the roots that threatened to tie him to the Forrest floor forever. A whimper of sound pulled from his throat as he attempted to call out to Lance, to say everything he wanted and needed to say. His throat ached with each hoarse word that whined within his chest.

One hand pulled away from his wound to scratch down the length of his throat, smearing the sigil of blood, but the spell remained.

Parting his lips, Keith called out again, throat pulled tight and thin as nothing but a hoarse exhale sounded. He staggered forward, caught on the roots and underbrush of the overgrown Forrest. And as soon as he was moving, he kept going — sprinting between the trees and over rotting stumps and thorny bushes.

Sendak laughed in the back of his mind. Chills coursed down the length of Keith’s spine.

His stumbling feet caught on a root or a tenacious pull of the Forrest, and Keith stumbled to the ground.

Pain like ripples of electricity jolted through him — his knees, his already bloodied palms. Blood splattered against the underbrush like buckshot, sizzling as it burned through even the dampest of leaves. A grunt of pain lodged itself in the back of his throat, unable to break past the sigil.

Sitting back on his knees, Keith pressed his hands to staunch the bleeding, desperate to tear his voice from his throat and hear Lance’s voice one last time. The knees of his pants soaked up the damp earth as clotted blood buried beneath his fingernails. But no sound came. And neither did Lance.

Falling forward, Keith was glad he never came, because of the danger and the hunger of the woods. But part of him ached to see Lance once again, to say his name one last time.

Keith allowed himself to close his eyes with Lance’s name on his lips.

At the sound of a snapped twig, Keith’s eyes snapped open to spy Lance leaning past a tall oak tree. His features were pinched in worry, and that expression only darkened when his gaze landed on Keith.

“Keith,” Lance gasped, and in that moment, Keith regretted ever drawing the sigil.

He wanted to warn Lance away, to scream that a predator was hunting them just steps behind. But Lance rushed forward and pressed his hands against Keith’s, against his wound and the steady flood of blood. It was clotting around their fingers, turning viscous and thick like the monsters that patrolled Sendak’s fortress.

A twig crunched behind him, and through blurry eyes, Keith watched Sendak step from between the trees. His smile was absolutely feral. “Little one, who is this creature you’ve brought me? Not the champion, I’m sure of that.” Sendak barked a laugh and pinned his gaze on Lance. “It’s a shame he dragged a pretty thing like you to the depths of the Forrest.”

With a snarl, Sendak snapped the fingers on his prosthesis and his undead army began marching from his fortress. The army marched as well as they could with broken stumbling legs. It was like a tide of rot that was slowly creeping in past the trees.

“Keith!” Lance shrieked as he pressed his hands against his slowly — too too too slowly — healing wound, “Keith, please. We have to move! Keith —”

His words grated against his lungs, viciously trying to escape — to tell Lance all of the information he had learned only minutes earlier: the hoktril curse’s weakness was that the death of its victims reflected back on the caster. He wanted to describe what killing that one hoktril victim had done to Sendak — even through his hazy gaze, he could see the weariness and the slight sluggishness to the demon’s movements.

But he couldn’t speak. The sigil burned against his chest with the thrum of his own magick, bound by his spell to keep him silent until the quintessence of the blood depleted.

With every breath, he fought against the sigil, burning through the magick that kept him bound. Every word pulled against his throat, tearing and gnashing through his teeth. Still no sound came; there was only the echo of a thousand plodding footsteps.

It would take too long to writhe from the spell.

There _had_ to be another way to warn Lance.

His hands fumbled against Lance’s, slick from the blood and the gaping flesh they were pressed against. “Keith,” Lance gasped, leaning down as if he could hear Keith whisper something.

He had to tell him that the victims’ neck was the most vulnerable area — the only area he had confirmed would actually kill them.

With Lance’s gaze fixed on him, Keith touched his neck with blood fingertips and glanced up at the soldiers. The movement was clear despite the jolt of pain that seared up his abdomen. His lips parted, but the words never left his tongue.

Lance’s hands froze, deep in the thickening blood of Keith’s stomach. “I hate when my visions are right,” Lance growled. With a steadying breath, Lance gave Keith one of his brilliant smiles, dimmed beneath the darkness of the Diabazzal Forrest. “Don’t worry, Keith. I know exactly what’s going to happen.”

His eyes glowed like sapphires caught in the sunlight, like quintessence infused with every fragment of his irises.

He pointed a clenched fist towards the marching army, Sendak at his back. With a gentle inhale, he pressed his palms together and drew his other arm backward until his fingertips brushed his jaw. Every inch of space that Lance pulled back another strand of blue magic spun itself from his fingers. By the time Lance was in position, a bow crafted of water vapor and magick, glowed in his hands.

And Keith swore that he looked like pure magick — like Sagittarius plucked from the stars and bound to Earth.

Lance ground his teeth and snapped his fingers, forming an icicle-shaped arrow notched in his bow. With the quick release of his fingers, the arrow flew straight and true and embedded deep in the throat of the nearest soldier.

It stumbled, gasping around the shaft. Weakened knees trembled as ink-like blood gurgled from the wound, staining the front of its dirtied shirt. Its hands grabbed hold of its comrades, but its jagged fingernails caught in their clothes and loose-hanging skin before it dropped to the underbrush. With their next steps, those comrades trudged over it like it was a new growth in the Forrest.

And with each snap of Lance’s fingers, the ice flew into the necks of stumbling hoktril victims. Blood bubbled from their wounds before they collapsed to the ground.

Lance was like a shooting star, brilliant and burning bright in the light of his magick. He was beautiful to watch — like art in motion.

It was almost unbearable to glance away from Lance, but Keith needed to watch Sendak’s expression — especially as this young, beautiful water witch took out the very army that had taken the demon years to cultivate.

Sendak stood hunched over, his prosthesis digging into the bark of a tree for stability. He was writhing, yellowed teeth bared and a snarl curled on his lips. With a growl, he tore himself from the bark and marched forward. Each step was unsteady as his muscles spasmed and his knees locked up from the jolting pain. But he steadily marched forward. His teeth were set on edge, pointed and feral. A growl echoed with each step, and spittle flew with every haggard breath.

“Lance,” Keith wanted to call out, but he couldn’t speak — couldn’t even whisper.

In a lightning dash, Sendak gritted his teeth and charged them. He grabbed hold of one of Lance’s newly-blooded hands and broke the beautifully strung bow. The magick shattered in a spray of raindrops upon Keith.

Lance gasped and glanced up at Sendak. “What —”

Before he could say anything else, Sendak tugged Lance away from Keith. The demon met Keith’s eyes before he wrenched Lance’s arm out of his socket with the quick twist of his wrist.

The only sound that echoed through the Forrest was Lance’s aborted scream.

“There.” His voice was almost patronizing as he watched the way Lance’s shoulder distorted. “We can’t have you shooting my entire army, now can we?”

Sendak’s grin was hungry, animalistic as the pain faded from each unmoving soldier. Using his grip on Lance’s dislocated arm, he dangled Lance just above the ground so that his toes barely brushed. He locked his gaze with Keith’s and tore into his own thumb, pressing the bleeding digit to the nape of Lance’s neck.

That same feral smile turned on Keith as Sendak whispered, “Pity that you still cannot speak, young one. I would’ve loved to hear you beg for his life.” Sendak licked his lips as if the prospect was delicious.

“You fucking bastard!” Lance screamed through teary eyes. His head was lolled to the side, teeth gritted and every muscle tensed through the sheer pain of Sendak’s grip.

Sendak’s gaze jumped to Lance, eyes narrowed and snarl pulled at the edge of his lips. “I will enjoy killing you.”

“Go ahead,” Lance snarled with a glint to his gaze that Keith had never seen before. “Even if we die here, you’ll never have Shiro or the kingdom of Altea. You’ll die alone in this forest with nothing but ashes around you.”

Silence settled around them, aside from the constant thunder of stumbling footsteps.

Just before breaking the quiet, Sendak’s grin morphed into something close to laughter. “Wait, you mean to tell me that the champion isn’t even here?” There was an uptick of humor in Sendak’s voice, something that boarded insanity. “You’ve come all of this way on a suicide mission only to fail right at the end. How pathetic.”

Lance parted his lips, but Sendak shook his arm, and instead of a snarled comeback, Lance only groaned. His free hand pressed against his shoulder as if begging the muscles to hold his dislocated bone in place.

With that same laughing smile, Sendak turned his attention to Keith. “Child, you’re truly pledging your life to save another insignificant man? I’ve told you before that _we_ are the special ones. Maybe killing this boy will help you see it.”

“No!” Keith gasped silently, reaching one hand out towards Lance. He wanted to berate himself for so clearly showing Sendak how much he cared about Lance, even without the use of his voice. But he could hardly think around the fog of blood loss and burning pain.

“If not,” Sendak purred, dragging Lance closer to his face, exhaling his rotting breath against his cheeks, “the champion bending to my will, obeying my very command at the snap of my fingers will certainly break you.”

Keith pressed his hands into the ground as a blood gushed from his unprotected wound, saturating the damp Forrest floor. He crawled forward, dragging streaks of red against the underbrush. The Forrest called to him — twigs and roots clawing at his hands, begging him to stay.

His hands dug into the softened earth, pulling himself forward, even as it begged him to stay. Cold tendrils, like the Forrest’s fingers, seeped into his bone marrow. It turned his body to cement, his muscles to unmoving masses.

With gritted teeth, he pulled himself forward. With each shuddered movement, blood burst past the incomplete clotting. Any healing his body had attempted to do was washed away with every little movement.

But he refused to lie here forever.

He had to reach Lance.

But before he could, his vision turned to ink, the darkness of the nights in the desert without a light for miles, a consuming, devouring kind of shadow. The sound of a thousand stumbling feet, Lance’s quiet sobs, and his own wheezing breathes faded to nothing. Keith couldn’t even feel the aching wound in his side or the dizziness of his blood loss.

He felt nothing within this world.

Was this death?

Was he finally, truly alone?

“Keith,” a familiar voice whispered. It was a rumble, a deep husk with the hint of an accent that sounded like warm honey and molasses. So nostalgic that it brought tears to his eyes. “Bud, you’ve got to wake up.”

“Dad?” Keith called out, looking around the utter darkness for any sight of his father — for the man he had been mourning for the last fifteen years.

“You’re stronger than you know, son. You’ve got a fire within you that no one can tame. All you have to do is harness it.”

Keith reached out, but he couldn’t feel anything. Couldn’t see his dad or attempt to reach him. There was only the endless night, a suffocating darkness that pressed against his chest and chased the oxygen from his lungs.

He wanted to run to his father, but his feet were tied to the floor like he was waist deep in quicksand. “Dad! Where are you?”

“Keith!” His father sounded desperate, like Lance had when struggling to staunch the bleeding. A kind of desperation that stems from love. “Please!”

“I don’t know what you want from me!” Keith seethed through his teeth and threw his hands into the air. Tears bit at his eyes and burned at the back of his throat.

“Keith, ignite,” the words were whispered in his ear and a shiver shot down the length of his spine.

With a blink, the world around him returned in a blaze of fire. The blood that had pooled beneath him caught alight. The flames danced around him, brushing against his skin, caressing and gentle, before spreading through the thick underbrush.

The dead men, fallen and walking, caught like kindling — one spark and they were embers.

A growl bellowed through the Diabazzal Forrest as Sendak felt echoes of the soldiers’ pain. His lips curled up as he let go of his grip on Lance’s arm, dropping the water witch to the forest floor. 

But before Lance could escape, Sendak grabbed his shoulder and held a bleeding thumb to the nape of his neck. Lance’s feet stumbled against the ground as Sendak dragged them out of the range of the fire.

But it was only growing.

Keith fed it with the very quintessence of his blood, allowed every heartbeat to drain out through the wound in his side. The blood slicked between his fingers and dribbled in sparks to the ground beneath him.

“How?!” Sendak cried, shrieking above the hiss of the fire and the crackling of burnt flesh. “How?!”

“I’m nothing like you. And I will never be anything like you,” Keith whispered past the sigil on his chest, the magick stretched and burned out in a spark. Each word tore at his raw throat but being able to speak was enough to push past the pain. “I would rather burn this entire forest to the ground than give you a chance to torture any more souls.”

“Keep the flames at bay or I will eviscerate him!” Sendak screamed as he shook Lance to emphasize his threat.

Maybe it was due to the blood loss, but Keith swore that there was an edge of fear in Sendak’s voice. Through his blurry vision, he could see the wince of pain that echoed across his features with every burned soldier. Each death was another nail in Sendak’s coffin.

“Keith,” Lance whispered, voice carrying across the crackle of flames and the dead men’s pained gurgles, “it’s okay.”

Keith wanted to scream at Lance that it wasn’t okay to sacrifice his life for Shiro, for Keith, for _anyone_. He was too important to too many people. He had Hunk and Pidge and Shay and his entire family — so many people that loved him, that would weep if he didn’t return from the depths of Diabazzal.

The only person Keith had was Shiro. He was the only one who was supposed to make this sacrifice.

“It’s okay,” Lance repeated with a faint smile on his lips.

Keith wanted to protest, but that grin caught him off guard.

What if Lance wasn’t saying a sacrifice was okay? In the café, he said he would live a long life, right? He’d been bold and determined at the end of a dagger, and now he nodded at Keith — encouraging him with a wry smile.

Would it be okay to not hold back the flames, to let them consume and devour as they pleaded?

“Sendak,” Keith coughed out, “I hope you burn in hell.”

He let the flames go.

They roared, reaching towards the canopy of drooping branches and the darkening sky above that. The core burned blue as the edges caught the fading sunlight in a miraculous yellow. They seemed to thank him as they charged forward — consumed with abandon. The underbrush was kindling, a mere stepping stone on their way to Sendak.

The army was embers as the flames reached the farthest edges of the fortress. They were ready to render the buildings to ash and debris.

Sendak screamed as the flames licked at his ankles before consuming him in a single burst. They seared off his skin, dark smoke curling around him. His muscles convulsed as he pulled away from Lance in a desperate attempt to put out the fire. But it only grew, burning bright until there was nothing but ash drifting in the wind.

The flames brushed against Lance’s skin, but they treated him like they had Keith — caressing and ushering him towards Keith.

Lance didn’t need much convincing before he ran through the fire. Each one delicately brushed his body as he ran by. He knelt by Keith’s side, hands pressing against his own and pushing against his open wound. Their fingers slipped together in the slickness of his blood.

“Keith, oh god, Keith please.” Lance was fumbling against him, hunched over him in this burning forest.

When Keith looked up, he saw the most beautiful man in the world. Eyes like the fathomless blue of the ocean. Skin like the golden sun, streaked with soot and perspiration. Lips that were moving a mile a minute with words that Keith couldn’t hear. And a heart that was overflowing with dedication and love.

Keith wanted to be a person that Lance cared about. Wanted to be more than the boy who dropped out of the Guild — more than Shiro’s protege or his best friend — more than the boy that died in the Diabazzal Forrest.

He slipped a hand out from between Lance’s and reached up to his cheek. His fingers brushed streaks of blood against the golden tan of his skin. “Lance,” Keith wheezed, “am I the hanged man?”

“What?” Lance exhaled, pressing more firmly against Keith’s wound.

Every touch was like it was through a thick layer of cotton, like the flames that were slowly dying around them were protecting him from all sensation.

“You know, the — the sacrifice,” Keith groaned as his hand dropped back to his side. He couldn’t help but focus on the streaks of blood that marred Lance’s cheek. “You said earlier than I wouldn’t have to do this alone —”

“That’s not what I meant, Keith. I’ll get you help. Just stop talking and focus on keeping your eyes open, okay?”

“— but you’re with me, so I’m not really alone.” Despite the weariness, Keith forced a smile, wanting Lance to know how thankful he really was. He threaded their fingers together, a mockery of holding hands as they were buried deep in Keith’s abdomen. “Thank you. It would’ve been scary to be by myself.”

Lance exhaled on a sob, curling over Keith and whispering, “I’m right here. I’m not going anywhere.”

Keith huffed a laugh, chest rising into the fierce force of Lance’s hands. “No, silly. I’m the one that’s leaving.”

“Keith —”

“I saw my dad earlier.” Keith closed his eyes, imagining his dad waiting beyond the darkness. “Do you think he’s waiting for me?”

“Fuck!” Lance cried out, hunching over Keith’s body and heaving out a sigh. With a sudden inhale, Lance jerked up and looked up towards the sky and the thick canopy of trees. “Oh gods, please let this work.”

He pulled the water bottle off his back and tore open the cap. With the flick of his wrists, Lance squeezed the water out in a circle around them and poured the remainder of the bottle on himself. Pressing his fingers back against Keith’s wound, Lance hunched over his body and gave him a trembling smile.

“Alright, Keith, I’m going to get us help.”

Lance’s magick, like strings of blue light, bubbled up from the water around him. It boiled, jumping and bouncing like it was filling with all of the quintessence in the air around them — the quintessence that wasn’t set alight by Keith’s magic.

Lance tipped his head back, and the magick shot into the sky. It was a beacon of light centered on them that pierced through the canopy and illuminated the stars above them. Keith flinched at the force, the very sizzle of quintessence against his skin.

“Lance,” Keith breathed.

He gave Keith a small smile, lip trembling and weariness illuminated by the magick around them. “Don’t worry, buddy. I’ve got you. Help will be here soon.”

“Okay, good. Because I’m really sleepy,” Keith slurred before he allowed himself to drop back into that senseless darkness.

─── ･ ｡ﾟ☆: *.☽ .* :☆ﾟ. ───

Keith awoke back in that darkness, expecting to hear his dad’s honey-slick voice.

But there was nothing except for the faintest whisper of voices — voices too far away to grasp, like a dream or a hint of something beyond comprehension.

“I did it, Pop,” Keith exhaled before allowing the suffocating darkness to lull him back to sleep.

─── ･ ｡ﾟ☆: *.☽ .* :☆ﾟ. ───

“Keith,” a warm voice called past the gritty night that encompassed him.

His eyes flickered open only to see cerulean eyes and a dimpled smile. The underbrush still pulled at his limbs and the shadows of the sunlight through the leaves shifted across his vision; they created a diluted nimbus behind Lance’s head. Scattered rays of sun glimmered in loose curls of his hair, turning it honeyed and bright. His eyes were smiling as he said, “Welcome back.”

Keith groaned and rubbed at his eyes. The movement of his hands pulled against his abdomen and a diluted pain pulsed across his muscles. He reached for the familiar wound in his side, only to find dried blood and a jagged tear in his shirt.

“How?” he exhaled, voice gruff and harsh.

Lance’s smile was weak as he shrugged towards the small gathering of living soldiers, dressed all in black with masks hiding their faces. “They answered my call. Their leader said they were waiting for this sign.” He shrugged again as if brushing off the nuances of the miracle that saved Keith’s life. “Supposedly, they’re a rebel group that’s been fighting against Sendak and his army for years. But one of the members told me that the founder actually created the group in order to answer my call. The future’s weird, huh?” Lance grinned, bright and dimpled and just like the sunlight behind him.

Keith grunted as he pushed against the ground and struggled to sit up. Lance’s hands braced him and helped him into a seated position. But even as Keith steadied himself, Lance’s hands didn’t leave. With a groan, Keith said, “I hate prophecies.”

With that same brilliant grin, Lance tipped his head back and laughed. “You’re such a skeptic, Keith. If all of these people hadn’t been close, you —” his throat caught on the words, stuck on the reality that almost was.

There was still a lightheadedness that Keith was coping with, a tilting of the ground that came with the immense blood loss he had suffered.

It was clear that if this rebel group hadn’t been close enough to save him, he wouldn’t have made it out of the Diabazzal Forrest. 

Keith reached out a hand and gently punched Lance in the shoulder. It was obvious by the clearing of his throat and the stark conversation shift, that neither of them wanted to continue down the thoughts of “what if.”

“I thought you didn’t know how to use offensive magick,” Keith said, watching a blush creep up Lance’s cheeks.

“I don’t really,” Lance sighed and scratched at the back of his neck.

Keith huffed a laugh through his nose. Even though it hurt to cross his arms and give Lance a playful expression, he did it anyway. “I don’t know. Shooting a bunch of undead soldiers with a bow and arrow seems pretty offensive to me.”

“I didn’t know if I could do it.” Lance scratched both of his hands through his hair. It was clear that his fingers were catching on dried blood and sweat. His palms fell to his lap. His tone was distant when he spoke, “It — it was in my vision, the one that I told you about, the one where I learned Sendak’s name. I’ve practiced the technique since I had the vision a year ago, but I was never very good. Like couldn’t shoot an unmoving target five feet away when I first started. Turns out that you need to learn how to shoot a regular bow before you can shoot a magical one.” Lance chuckled, scratching at the back of his neck. Some of his humor faded when he met Keith’s gaze. “Today, I just hoped that it was enough to save you.”

“You did. You saved me, Lance.” Keith reached out a hand, slow enough that the tremble of his nerves and blood loss was obvious. He grabbed hold of Lance’s hand and gave it a gentle squeeze.

Before Keith could pull back, Lance threaded their fingers together and squeezed back. “Yeah?”

“How can I ever repay you?” Keith’s voice held a whisper of sincerity. Because even though the rebels had been close, the only reason Keith was saved was because Lance called them all here.

Lance’s expression turned from wided-eyed shock to something mischievous. His gaze dropped to his lap, to their clasped hands, and back up to Keith’s eyes. “You can say yes to a date with me.”

“What?”

“You heard me, Kogane. Go on a date with me, and I’ll call us even.” The blush that had settled in Lance’s cheeks only deepened. His grip on Keith’s hand tightened as if drawing stability from their physical touch.

Keith hated how his words were a dry, cracked whisper when he asked, “Why would you even want to go on a date with _me_?”

“Don’t make me spell it out.” Lance shrugged and rolled his eyes. There was a lightheartedness to his movements even though they had both been on the verge of death only moments before. His smile was cocky and devastating, if Keith was honest with himself. “You’re the most talented witch since Takashi Shirogane. You’re brave, loyal to a fault, and so giving to those you care about. I just want to be one of those people.”

“You are,” Keith breathed, and the admission felt so freeing as something loosened in his chest. “I don’t even know when it happened, but I do care about you, Lance.”

Lance’s smile was brilliant, wide and mirthful. At the sight of it, Keith was sure that he could live through a hundred battles if that smile was waiting for him at the end.

“Well, let’s burn this down the rest of this demonic fortress so we can go get ice cream or waffles or something,” Lance joked, and Keith couldn’t help but laugh.

Maybe fate hadn’t always been the kindest to him, but with Lance by his side and Shiro’s recovery on the horizon, fate had given him a blessing — especially since he wouldn’t have to do all of this alone anymore.  
  


**Author's Note:**

> Thank you so much for reading this piece, and I hope you enjoyed!! I always love to hear what you think!  
> Happy Holidays! °˖✧◝(⁰▿⁰)◜✧˖°
> 
> If you feel like it, you can follow me on [tumblr](https://communikateee.tumblr.com) or [twitter](https://twitter.com/communikateeee)!
> 
> Please please please go check out this [beautiful, awe-inspiring, gorgeous art work](https://twitter.com/mayoshirobuta/status/1348968000653725696?s=20) that Mayoshirobuta made for this fic!!


End file.
